[Campaign] The First War

[Footman16]

Top is The The First War cinematic. Bottom is The Last Guardian cinematic.

But it is indeed a topic of discussion as to how to present cinematic as ingame locations.
An argument for the change can be that rendered cinematics also look different.

Luckily we still have time until the last missions of the orc campaign to nail the look.

We definitely dont plan to switch around custom assets. I think we can get away with removing some custom stuff though.

Ah I see, a different look across different campaigns I think makes sense considering they're made at different times as long as it's consistent within a campaign, also since different campaigns will have different gameplay.

When it comes to custom assets I think it's one of those things where it requires an artistic eye, when to use them and when not to but in general if a custom asset is needed it shouldn't be shied away from being used, the issue is when custom assets clash, or are over-used or unfitting etc. However, from your other works I don't think this is something you need to worry about; your use of custom assets has always been tasteful and appropriate

 

[OutsiderXE]

Allow me to reframe my previous statement:
Currently interludes and ingame maps are created by different people. Each person has their own style. Interludes are created with custom assets similar to my previous campaigns. Playable maps are created 99% without any custom assets. For the time being we dont want to influence anyones preferred workflow and style. Long term I can definitely see a compromise being made so there is a coherent look.

 

[Footman16]

Allow me to reframe my previous statement:
Currently interludes and ingame maps are created by different people. Each person has their own style. Interludes are created with custom assets similar to my previous campaigns. Playable maps are created 99% without any custom assets. For the time being we dont want to influence anyones preferred workflow and style. Long term I can definitely see a compromise being made so there is a coherent look.

Ahh I gotcha, that makes sense, especially if it's a collab. Then once it's all done you can go do editing passes of it holistically to ensure cohesion etc and what not. Ok, yeah I understand you.

 

[loktar]

Hey, hope the development is going well!

Although I suspect you've probably found a different solution by now, in case it's useful, I've added my project files and exports to the loading screens pastebin I made when I was still on the team:

• The project files are for GIMP (.xcf format).
• TFW Map New.xcf is the complete map I made (the site where I got the source map seems to be down unfortunately) with all the icons and text and stuff included.
• LoadingScreenHD.zip contains LoadingScreenHD.xcf which has cropped parts of the map and the loading screen/parchment background. Can be used to create more loading screens.
• Exports.zip contains the exported .tga files and the .mdx files with the appropriate paths set for chapters 0-4. I believe these were already imported into the campaign file, but I've included it just in case.

Edit: BTW, I'm not 100% sure about this, but IIRC the last version of the campaign I worked on (and shared) was already up to date with version 1.1.7 of the map. If the Rally ability has a mana cost of 60 instead of 0 then that should indeed be the case (unless that was changed later by someone else of course).

 

[OutsiderXE]

Great!

Dev update: We are a bit reluctant to rerelease Chapters 0-4, seeing as we might as well work for a few more months and deliver the entire human campaign. So far status is:

9/17 Terrain
6/17 Gameplay
5/17 Cinematics & Polish

(40% completion)

Orc campaign exists only on paper so far, but I guess we will not be talking much about that until next year.

 

[OutsiderXE]

Dev update: The human campaign is a bit on the sidelines, as we started working on the Orc campaign earlier than expected. We have decided to remove Rend and Maim and replace them with the warlock Teron'gor because that would strengthen the subplot surrounding the Shadow Council. Teron'gor also complements Doomhammer on the gameplay side, being a ranged spellcaster.

So far we have one orc mission fully playable with the second one being half-way done.

Our progress for both campaigns in numbers:
11/17 Terrain
7/17 Gameplay
5/17 Cinematics & Polish

That means we are now at around 45% completion, in less than 10 months after the original announcement.

 

[CGCyan]

Dev update: The human campaign is a bit on the sidelines, as we started working on the Orc campaign earlier than expected. We have decided to remove Rend and Maim and replace them with the warlock Teron'gor because that would strengthen the subplot surrounding the Shadow Council. Teron'gor also complements Doomhammer on the gameplay side, being a ranged spellcaster.

So far we have one orc mission fully playable with the second one being half-way done.

Our progress for both campaigns in numbers:
11/17 Terrain
7/17 Gameplay
5/17 Cinematics & Polish

That means we are now at around 45% completion, in less than 10 months after the original announcement.

So the brothers will still appear but not playable? Also do you include the Burning Blade clan in the Campaign?

 

[OutsiderXE]

Rend and Maim have been written out completely.
Individual clans may appear as enemy player names or sometimes mentioned in cinematics, but generally the orcs are presented as a single force.

edit: correction: There will be orc vs orc maps and that will include fighting other clans, and that will be quite clear who we are fighting, but we don't use unique assets or abilities for individual clans.

 

[Kotol]

Dev update: The human campaign is a bit on the sidelines, as we started working on the Orc campaign earlier than expected. We have decided to remove Rend and Maim and replace them with the warlock Teron'gor because that would strengthen the subplot surrounding the Shadow Council. Teron'gor also complements Doomhammer on the gameplay side, being a ranged spellcaster.

So far we have one orc mission fully playable with the second one being half-way done.

Our progress for both campaigns in numbers:
11/17 Terrain
7/17 Gameplay
5/17 Cinematics & Polish

That means we are now at around 45% completion, in less than 10 months after the original announcement.

So the human heroes will be Anduin Lothar (Strength), Gavinrad (Agility), Khadgar (Intelligence) and the orc heroes will be Orgrim Doomhammer (Strength), Garona Halforcen (Agility), Teron'gor (Intelligence).

 

[deepstrasz]

Since there's no more download file to check and I can't remember, is the campaign using WoW music as well alongside the original Orcs & Humans'? I'm asking because if you're using the latter, I think you could use title and briefing for orc and human (which one you prefer for either) at the start of each chapter/map (intro cinematic) and the victory in the end cinematic scene of each chapter/map. Defeat could be used when you get the Defeat message/dialog box and the other victory (basically game win) at the end of each campaign or for each campaign's credits (if you plan something like in Warcraft III). Intro is of course for the beginning of the story cinematic map and the others are for gameplay.

 

[OutsiderXE]

So the human heroes will be Anduin Lothar (Strength), Gavinrad (Agility), Khadgar (Intelligence) and the orc heroes will be Orgrim Doomhammer (Strength), Garona Halforcen (Agility), Teron'gor (Intelligence).

Gavinrad is Str at the moment, but I can see him being changed to Agi in the future. But Garona is Agi and also playable in the human campaign.

Since there's no more download file to check and I can't remember, is the campaign using WoW music as well alongside the original Orcs & Humans'? I'm asking because if you're using the latter, I think you could use title and briefing for orc and human (which one you prefer for either) at the start of each chapter/map (intro cinematic) and the victory in the end cinematic scene of each chapter/map. Defeat could be used when you get the Defeat message/dialog box and the other victory (basically game win) at the end of each campaign or for each campaign's credits (if you plan something like in Warcraft III). Intro is of course for the beginning of the story cinematic map and the others are for gameplay.

Unfortunately our plan to provide regular playable updates is not really happening at the moment. We are working on too many things at the same time. Releasing updates would require to focus on fewer things, polish them as much as we can and then release them for public testing.

We had WC1 Remastered music for a while, but I decided to remove it because the music is quite monotonous over time. I plan to add numerous tracks from WoW for cinematics and possibly victory/defeat screens/messages. I think normal gameplay music will be standard WC3 music, but that can change as well.

We try to imitate WC1 where quality isn't diminished, but the target is to create standard WC3 campaigns set during the First War.

 

[deepstrasz]

We try to imitate WC1 where quality isn't diminished, but the target is to create standard WC3 campaigns set during the First War.

That's fair.

warlock Teron'gor

I've not heard of this dude until today. It's totally a late WoW character. I feel not even Warcraft III fans can related. It's also confusing that there's a Warcraft II Death Knight called Teron Gorefiend and from what I read on the wikis there's no clear indication that they're supposed to be the same person.

 

[OutsiderXE]

They are the same. Teron Gorefiend

Since his character has bsrely been explored before WC2 we have more freedom to write cool stuff with him. We did something similar for Gavinrad and I think it turned out well - but I will let others be the judge.

 

[deepstrasz]

Since his character has barely been explored before WC2 we have more freedom to write cool stuff with him. We did something similar for Gavinrad and I think it turned out well - but I will let others be the judge.

That's honourable although I feel it's a bit over the top to have him sort of a different person after getting bloated and defeated (WoD). Somehow his soul survived (WoD) and Gul'dan put it into a human knight's reanimated body (WcII).
Afterwards he collaborated with Ner'zhul (Warcraft II).

 

[OutsiderXE]

WoD is an alternate timeline that has no impact on our story.

 

[Kotol]

They are the same. Teron Gorefiend

Since his character has bsrely been explored before WC2 we have more freedom to write cool stuff with him. We did something similar for Gavinrad and I think it turned out well - but I will let others be the judge.

According to lore, there is no information about Teron'gor taking part in the First War. I wonder if it would be better to have Cho'gall, who took part in the First War, instead of Teron'gor (I don't think Cho'gall is a good candidate either because he's an ogre, not an orc).

 

[deepstrasz]

According to lore, there is no information about Teron'gor taking part in the First War. I wonder if it would be better to have Cho'gall, who took part in the First War, instead of Teron'gor (I don't think Cho'gall is a good candidate either because he's an ogre, not an orc).

I think the idea for Teron here is to be in his pre-death knight form. According to the wiki, he was a shaman before being one of Gul'dan's first warlocks and in Warcraft II was turned into a death knight.

 

[OutsiderXE]

Teron was one of the warlocks killed by Doomhammer between WC1 and WC2.
Source: Tides of Darkness novel.

Cho'gall will be one of the antagonists in the human campaign. I chose to make Teron playable over Cho'gall specifically because it's not quite clear what he was up to during the First War, so we have a bit more freedom with storytelling.

Read on to get a better unterstanding

Spoiler

Aside from some prologue stuff we want to have two campaigns that are clearly separate, but follow one another, like traditional WC3 campaigns. So you play as humans first, and they deal with the defense of villages, the first siege of Stormwind and Medivh. The orcs then have their own inner conflicts with the Frostwolf clan, Blackhand and the second siege of Stormwind.

This creates some problems, because that means we kill off Medivh relatively early. And when Medivh is killed, Gul'dan falls into a coma. This leaves a void in some of the storytelling. I think we can make Teron'gor a believable "surrogate"-Gul'dan, sharing his motives and some of his abilities. We will not try to copy Gul'dan, so Teron should be his own person, but his belief in Gul'dan's work should be there.

Cho'gall on the other hand would probably be more occupied with his own void stuff. We will not be getting into that much, because it's more of a WC2 story in my opinion.

 

[deepstrasz]

Also, in the Warcraft II manual he's depicted as a malicious character who wants to get his own world and sides with Ner'zhul aiding him to open the portals/rifts (apparently Warcraft III dimensional gates) breaking Draenor apart. Perhaps he'd try to direct the warlock order more to his view and when Gul'dan comes back will punish (first of Death Knights?) or keep an eye on him. During Gul'dan's coma, some other more loyal warlocks could keep the power balance for Teron not to take control of the group or something.

 

[OutsiderXE]

That's good to know. My idea was to make him a loyalist during the orc campaign and he gets betrayed in the end.

 

[deepstrasz]

Yeah, could work too and hence why he will just want to do stuff his own way (now that he's also another type of being) rather than team up or support others more than for his own interest.

 

[OutsiderXE]

Status Update December 2025:
Since the last update from two months ago we have:

• Finished rewriting the story. Rend and Maim were written out completely. Instead, we now have Teron'gor as a playable Warlock hero and the Shadow Council now has a much more prominent presence in the story.
• Terrained one mission and scripted two missions. The human campaign isn't quite done, but we are well into the orc campaign.

- Added more custom stuff:
-- Custom tileset for Chapter 12 - Burning Steppes (by @Sapprine + custom cliff textures from us ).
-- Implemented sub factions that are visually distinct from their original WC1 looks: Dark Iron Dwarves, Shadow Council, Bleeding Hollow Clan. Possibly more to come in the future. These should provide some visual variety. The player will still play with the original models. These sub-factions will be mostly reskins without new gameplay mechanics.

It's been nearly a year since we first started. Progress of the campaign is slow but steady. We've managed to finish over 50% - so a release in 2026 is realistic.

12/17 Terrain
10/17 Gameplay
5/17 Cinematics & Polish

 

[OutsiderXE]

Status Update February 2026:
Winter break is over, so we are continuing our work.

14/17 Terrain
12/17 Gameplay
6/17 Cinematics & Polish

We are re-evaluating the gameplay and presentation for Chapter 15, the one with Garona and Llane. The original plan was to have Garona (and the player) think they are fighting orcs inside the Keep, but we will likely change that for various gameplay reasons.

Other than that we are pretty much locked in, and the only thing we need is time.

Opinions on the release process are changing frequently. On one hand, an early, segmented release would be good for advertising and having more people playtest before the final product. On the other hand, I'm tired of seeing half-finished campaigns being released (and abandoned), and a full release would be cool. My personal wish is to release it within the next 6 months, but I can't say for sure.

 

[Footman16]

I personally believe in releasing stuff when fully finished (with some limited exceptions). But I think it depends on what you think is best in terms of production cycle and feedback etc.

 

[Shatterfury]

The maps you release are of high quality and I, for one, will wait to play it when it`s done!