[Campaign] The Ruby Crusade

[DwarfBoy]

A campaign series taking place in it's own world, separate from Azeroth. This campaign follows the story of the Ruby Queen, Vanessa Stargrazer. This page currently houses an early build of it, including the Prolouge, 3 playable chapters, and an interlude.

DOWNLOAD!

> All Custom Units, Techtrees, Monsters, and Items
> A story within it's own original world

Charatcers

	Vanessa Stargrazer Known as The Ruby Queen, Vanessa is the leader of the Ruby Crusade and a proud paladin warrior. Her goal is to eradicate the demon threat from the world, currently doing well due to her success with her last battle against Mal’Goroth.
	Pronoia An angel under the Goddess of Hope, she and Vanessa became one with each other in order to fight the demons and halt the Armada, as well as giving her, and her followers the power to fight back against the demons.
	Dallin Morgain Original becoming a cleric, he was inspired to take on the role of a paladin by Vanessa and the rest of The Ruby Crusade. Once he was able to swing a hammer, he quickly joined The Ruby Crusade, and rose up the ranks in leadership before becoming a commander of the forces. He holds a great loyalty to the Crusade and to the queen.
	Danith Arcamoth Danith is a loyal archmagus of the high elves, and have been with the high elven society for as long as it’s been around. He’s also has a curiosity to the humans, due to their history and heratige.
	Mal'Goroth Mal’Goroth is the leader of this attacking demons, being responsible for both the invasion that Vanessa fought off prior and this new invasion that he’s preparing.
	Harmos Harmos is a loyal chaplain of the Ruby Crusade. He has been around since the beginning, but is often believed to have ulterior motives, as he wished to study the fel magics as opposed to destroying it like Ruby Queen demands.

Screen Shots

Click Me!

Change Log

Update 1

General
*Omni-Heal as been altered; Mana Cost increased to 75, Cooldown decreased to 10 seconds.
*Added Interlude 2 and Chapter 4
*Added more units for the Orc Clans and Undead Nexus
Chapter 2
*Altered the Graveyard slightly (Fixed some terrian, gravestones, camera, etc)
Prolouge
*Added some more effects

Update 2

General
*Added Chapter 5
*Danith Arcamoth has a spell set
*Changed the projectile of the Hellfire Towers
*I learned how to add sky boxes
*The Campaign's Preview Image has been changed
*Replaced the test map

Interlude 1
*Fixed that issue with Pronoia's name.

Chapter 3
*Fixed bug which loads the hero from the wrong cache
*Fixed bug where the dagger isn't removed from your inventory upon completing the quest
*Vanessa can now achieve level 6

Chapter 4
*Fixed some cameras issue

Update 3 - Part 1

I decided to try and mess around with the terrain on all of the maps in some areas. Some look better like, like in the city of Chapter 1, some I don't know what to do with, and others are more splotches. I'm not really sure what to do with this now.

Credits and Thank Yous

Models & Skins

assasin_lord for the Hero Glow
67chrome for Vanessa Stargrazer's skin, and the Cryomancer skin
Revilo for Vanessa's Sword
Blood Raven for Vanessa's Shield
Grey Knight for Vanessa's Ultimate Form
RavenBlackbird for Pronoia's model
Ujimasa Hojo for the Peasant, Militia, Crimson Knight, Chaplain, Priest, Storm Hawk Rider, Mage Tower, Archmagus, All High Elf Buildings (and their icons), Hellfire Tower, Oracle Tower (and all related towers), and the Cave Elf models
Wandering Soul for the Crossbowyer model
AndrewOverload519 for the Catapult, Pyromancer, Arcanite Golem, and Acursed Archer model
Em! for the Pegasus Rider model
skrab for the Ariel Barracks model
Mr. Bob for the Market model
Elenai for the High Elf Infintry model
Kitabatake for the High Elf Ballista model
Direfury for the Goblin Magi model
epsilon for the Orcish Destroyer
Sellenisko for the Dragon Rider Model
dhguardianes for the Arcane Explosion effect model
Daelin for the Arcana Force Aura effect and Fey Fire effect model
stan0033 for the Light Defense and Bandages effect
Tranquil for the Exorism missle
Pyritie for the Exorism, Stromstrike, and Curse of Weakness buff model
Mythic for the Justice Aura effect
JetFangInferno for the Hammer of Justice's, Vanessa's Ultimate Form's projectile, Arcane Blast's projectile and effect, Elven Priests Light's Call effect, Cryomancer's Slow effect, and Ley Wave missle models
Kirym for the Tintable Rune model
Weep for the Archmagus's attack missle
General Frank for the Spearthrower model and the Potion models
sPy for the Light's Call model
infrenus for the Dark Spire model (and icon)
levigeorge1617 for the Troll Bear Warrior and Troll Strom Caster models
Mc ! for the Fire Elemental and Crystaline Golem model
Cavman for the Troll Priestess, Troll Bear Raider, Fel-Infused Rat, and Skeletal Lumberjack models
crl for the Corruption effect model

Icons

67chrome for Vanessa Stargrazer's icon and Cryomancer's icon
Hermit for Dallin Morgain's icon
Norinrad for Pronoia's icon
Pyraeus for the Chaplain's icon
AndrewOverload519 for the Catapult, Pyromancer, Arcanite Golem, and Acursed Archer icons
Lelling for the Pegsus Rider icon
Eagle XI for the Ariel Barracks and Marketplace icons
Darkfang for the Flame Shield, Arcane Arrows, Arcana Force Aura icons
kola for the Arcane Blast icon
NFWar for the Crimson Knight's icon, one of the Pyromancer upgrade icons and the Cryomancer upgrade icons
Peekay for one of the Pyromancer upgrade icons
Zephyrius2412 for the Upgrade Icons for High Elves
Kuhneghetz for the Goblin Spellcaster icon
Nichita_00 for the Spearthrower icon
Sin'dorei300 for the Dragon Rider icon
Hellx-Magnus for the Stromstrike and Ley Wave icons
GooS for the Potion icons
Ujimasa Hojo for the Hellfire Tower icons
Mr.Goblin for the Healing Totem icon
Cavman for the Troll Priestess and Troll Bear Raider icon
Solu9 for the Shaman's Dagger icon
Blizzard Entertainment for the following icons:

BE Icon Usage

Light's Defense
Fireblast
Exorism
Jusitce Aura
Omni-Heal
Hammer of Justice
Devotion Aura
Arcane Explosion
Crystaline Golem
Cryomancer's Slow
Ice Armor
Take Aim
Light's Call
Ward of Purity
Bandages
Spring Watter
Auto-Repair
Enhanced Crossbows
Healing Touch
Healing Drums
Curse of Weakness
Healing Touch
Enchanted Ruby
Enchanted Sapphire

 

[Mechanical Man]

Terrain is basically nonexistent that almost hurts eyes. Especially evident in cinematics, where also the camera is moving to fast when rotating to the next characters and is too far away, where you can see borders of the map, which doesn't even contain a skybox, which feels very artificial and not believable. Overall the terrain seems to be done in 1 minute for each map, what is supposed to be a city has only few scattered buildings and a pseudo road on cityscape terrain, which is otherwise very empty, in wilderness trees and cliffs have rectangular order, etc

Story and dialogs are ok I guess, still cheesy, but at least not just another after frozen throne alternative. Some spelling and grammar errors, is Pronoia or Parnoia? I see you used some custom resources, but you still could use more.

 

[ShadowFox555]

Terrain is basically nonexistent that almost hurts eyes. Especially evident in cinematics, where also the camera is moving to fast when rotating to the next characters and is too far away, where you can see borders of the map, which doesn't even contain a skybox, which feels very artificial and not believable. Overall the terrain seems to be done in 1 minute for each map, what is supposed to be a city has only few scattered buildings and a pseudo road on cityscape terrain, which is otherwise very empty, in wilderness trees and cliffs have rectangular order, etc

Story and dialogs are ok I guess, still cheesy, but at least not just another after frozen throne alternative. Some spelling and grammar errors, is Pronoia or Parnoia? I see you used some custom resources, but you still could use more.

Tbh, I agree with this. The terrain looks shitty and very, very...bad. I would recommend to watch some tutorials on good terraining (if they exist, lol), or to atleast, recruit someone who knows how to make good terrain. An example of this, are the sewers. Those don't look like sewers nor do they make sense.

 

[DwarfBoy]

Terrain is basically nonexistent that almost hurts eyes. Especially evident in cinematics, where also the camera is moving to fast when rotating to the next characters and is too far away, where you can see borders of the map, which doesn't even contain a skybox, which feels very artificial and not believable. Overall the terrain seems to be done in 1 minute for each map, what is supposed to be a city has only few scattered buildings and a pseudo road on cityscape terrain, which is otherwise very empty, in wilderness trees and cliffs have rectangular order, etc

Story and dialogs are ok I guess, still cheesy, but at least not just another after frozen throne alternative. Some spelling and grammar errors, is Pronoia or Parnoia? I see you used some custom resources, but you still could use more.

Tbh, I agree with this. The terrain looks shitty and very, very...bad. I would recommend to watch some tutorials on good terraining (if they exist, lol), or to atleast, recruit someone who knows how to make good terrain. An example of this, are the sewers. Those don't look like sewers nor do they make sense.

Part of me wants to improve on the terrain, one part because I do agree they don't look super good, with some being oddly built. Another part of me wants to just... pretend the issue doesn't exist and hope that everything else about this, such as the story, the characters, the lore, and the gameplay, are able to cover up the fact that the terrain is garbo. Something tells me that the latter is a bad idea since, even if I had the best possible story and game play in this, I can still hear the sounds of "terrain is still bad" in the echos. Overall, unless someone who's good at terraining wants to go in and overall the maps to make them look good while still keeping the functions in check, all I can really do is try to mitigate the issues (like seeing the edge of the world in cinematics), and hope the bad terrain doesn't have an effect on what is my main focus.

 

[Chaosy]

I wont reitterate anything.

I have not played it but I can see that effort has been put into the story

 

[Mechanical Man]

You can't pretend the issue doesn't exist, because visuals are equally important, you're making a game, not a novel. Terrain says a lot about the world, the civilizations, etc. Currently it shows like it's some sort of holographic simulation nightmare. You still need to meet minimal standards for the terrain, even if the story suffers a bit.

 

[Deleted member 242951]

Part of me wants to improve on the terrain, one part because I do agree they don't look super good, with some being oddly built. Another part of me wants to just... pretend the issue doesn't exist and hope that everything else about this, such as the story, the characters, the lore, and the gameplay, are able to cover up the fact that the terrain is garbo. Something tells me that the latter is a bad idea since, even if I had the best possible story and game play in this, I can still hear the sounds of "terrain is still bad" in the echos. Overall, unless someone who's good at terraining wants to go in and overall the maps to make them look good while still keeping the functions in check, all I can really do is try to mitigate the issues (like seeing the edge of the world in cinematics), and hope the bad terrain doesn't have an effect on what is my main focus.

Here's the thing dude , whenever you're working on a project and ask "can a strong x make up for a weak y?" The answer is always no.
A player won't not notice the terrain because you have a good storyline and mechanics/systems that you may add in the future.


Still that isn't something to be worried about , you can always improve. There are some terraining guides in the tutorials sections iirc. After you're done with them just get grab a bunch of pallets and let your creativity run wild. Try to imagine what kind of an environment you would want if your game was a standalone AAA game like far cry and then try to come as close as possible on the wc3 engine.

Also , don't overdo the terrain in hopes of adding in the triggers/code later. It will be an issue because you might have to move things around to make the gameplay more convenient . If you complete your decorations first then you'll run into a huge problem where you'll have to either redo the map or end up changing the gameplay to be executable on the terrain instead of making the terrain suit the gameplay.

So in that regard, you are good to go.

Good luck with your project ! Here's hoping for the best !

 

[Chaosy]

I think that a strong aspect can cover up another.. in certain scenarios.

For example, if your story is god tier but your terrain is just acceptable people might not complain.
But if your terrain is horrific people will still complain even if the story is the best ever.

And even then you're gambling on your story, you are not favored as your odds of standing out are preeeeeetty low.
Especially since there are maps that offer both so you need to be on a DC level really.

Me personally, I always make the terrain first because good terrain inspire me.
A lot of the time, terrain is adjectives since you do not describe terrain in cinematic scenes (generally).
It sets the scene and mood, it is very hard to tell a good story without in in the wc3 engine.

 

[Deleted member 242951]

I think that a strong aspect can cover up another.. in certain scenarios.

Yeah it can, and that's mostly the case with almost all custom games. But for a custom game to be good, even the weakest aspect of the game has to atleast be bearable, or average. That is not the case here with the empty map (imo).

Me personally, I always make the terrain first because good terrain inspire me.
A lot of the time, terrain is adjectives since you do not describe terrain in cinematic scenes (generally).
It sets the scene and mood, it is very hard to tell a good story without in in the wc3 engine.

I think everyone has their own development workflows.
I can see how doing the terrain first helps you stay engaged in your own work.
You have this beautiful landscape that took weeks upon weeks to get right, waiting for a story to be told in its setting.
It would hard to let all that go to waste.

 

[DwarfBoy]

Alright, so, here's my current plan:

• Finish up Chapter 5
• Post it up with it's change log
• Let people send me suggestions about how I could make the terrain better
• Alternative, see if someone is willing to skim over 8 maps in this campaign to see if they'd be willing to make the terrain better, hopefully without breaking the triggers

It's not a good plan, but the only other thing I can do is overall each map with better terrain and then try to import all the stuffs from one map to the new one, but that sort of thing would only cause me to completely loose my mind. Especially the sewers in Chapter 1 since I don't have much of a reference for it.

EDIT: Okay, I've updated now. I'm guessing the major issue is the overabundance of a single tile type?

 

[AMarkoff]

Gameplay Tips:
1. Make the 1st mission richer. Instead of murder - close all exits from the sewage system (from which reinforcements come)
2. By the 1st mission would be perfect model Gluma (Skaven Clanrat, Warplock Jezzail, Stormvermin). Green-colored models can be replaced by the ability (Disease Cloud Aura - Abomination) - it will look better.
3. The landscape ... I think you understand - nowhere worse (Compare your landscape with the "Reigh of Chaos" Human campaign)

 

[tulee]

If you don't have much free time, just make sure you spam trees to cover cliffs and other edges. Perhaps zoom in cinematic scenes more so players cannot see far beyond the characters (and save you from needing to make extra environment).

EDIT: Okay, I've updated now. I'm guessing the major issue is the overabundance of a single tile type?

Yes. Even though spamming tiles doesn't necessarily make terrain look natural, multiple terrain tiles will at least make it look more interesting.

 

[Veritas 117]

Also be sure to change the elevation and add some hills here and there to add some texture rather than just flat terrain. Something I didn't learn for far too long was that if you have a doodad selected you can use ctrl+page up and ctrl+page down to raise and lower the selected doodads. This really changed everything about the way I terrained things and allows you so much more versatility with your decorations.

Good luck mate

 

[Graetgames]

Good Campaign but i think i have found a few bugs.....

1. The techtree for the Ruby Crusade needs to be a fix. When i have upgraded to Keep the tier 2 ranged armour is disabled. And at the last chapter i have a Castle and i thought it's still here and its not.
2. there is a suggestion to the Elven Archmage's Ultimate is to Overpowered. I Blitz through the enemy defences without having a problem and even with the 120/120 max food camp i still blast through the final chapter.
   
   Can you nerf that ultimate so it can be useable again? and maybe buff the Cooldown time for the Ultimate

i think thats it other then the a few Spelling errors that needs to be fixed.

 

[Ether]

Maybe make a single map with all the aesthetics and characters with different environments depending on your shots, just like theatre map for cinematics only. A studio map exactly. (Optional) You can save them into a movie, a custom mpq file, to play interlude-like map, which is separate from toned down terrain or chapter maps where the action and gameplay happen.

 

[SgtWinter]

T'is is a very interesting campaign where we get to play some sort of pseudo-copy of the Scarlet Crusade. But... there are some issues.

1.) The terrain is painfully hard to look at. It's plain, empty and just bad in general. Like everyone else suggested, fix it up or hire someone else to do it. There are multiple terraining guides on the Hive tutorials section. For the sewers section in Mission 1, I recommend changing the water to green and replacing the ugly Dirt Cliffs to the Cityscape Cliffs, and adding some dark green fog to make it seem more like you're underground. This is the biggest issue for me, sorry to say.
2.) The cinematics (like in the prologue) are simply too fast and disorientating, due to how fast the cameras move. Please adjust the timing of your cinematics. Also make use of the fade trigger to make camera transitions better, as well as to remember to unselect units from the player via triggers so players don't see the selection circle on their units during cutscenes.
3.) Lack of music. You should play music during cinematics, cutscenes and bossfights. It doesn't have to be custom music. You can use the default WC3 soundtrack like Comradeship, DarkAgents, or TragicConfrontation (My favorite soundtracks in War3 :3) to set the mood and atmosphere. Make sure that the music matches the situation though.
4.) Map feels too empty. Right now, the maps are pretty open and full of space, which isn't a bad thing since I've had my share of custom campaigns where there's so little space for my units to funnel through, but I recommend adding some fitting doodads to fill up the empty spaces since there's quite a lot of them.
5.) There are LOTS of spelling mistakes. Those are minor problems compared to the ones listed above, though.

Other than those, I do see that your campaign has potential, so I suggest that you work on it and polish it some more. Good luck on your project! This peaked my interest so I'll be checking back in when you've made further progress. Happy map-making~!

 

[Wazzz]

When it comes to terrains, a lot of what I noticed people were talking about using has been raising and declining terrain and throwing in pathing blockers rather than using the Blizzard Cliffs, which I think partly comes down to personal preference although it looks endlessly better than Blizzard Cliffs - it depends on what function you would seek to use them for.

There does seem to be a rather empty feel to a lot of things, where it seems to have the bare bones for what's needed put in and the rest is sort of left dry. I think it's been said before, these are just the sorts of things you could potentially look at if you seek to develop this further.

I certainly wish you the best on your project, it seems like you have some ideas that just need work on translating them into development.

 

[Lord Siler]

Interesting little campaign, looking promising, I'll give it a try whenever I have some free time

 

[The_Messenger]

I've given the campaign a try and it feels very, very early in development. The maps are fairly empty lacking terrain doodads, decoration, poor population and environment details. It's not necessarily a bad thing since it's early development but I decided to put it out there nonetheless.

1) The Fel-Infused Rats are very weak enemies to go up against. Giving someone so many units in the beginning is too much in my opinion, not to mention that Morgain is a decently strong hero. I would suggest a buff to the fel Infused Rats' damage, HP and a change in their armor type; personally I think the stats from a maximum upgraded Abomination would suffice (giving them the Plague Cloud ability would also make sense considering they are mutated and would emanate vile clouds of poison or the likes). Additionally, Morgain could arrive with just a token force or a personal escort (2 Footmen for example) and while you hunt down the Rats you can save additional soldiers to have at your side for help.
2) I feel that the story lacks vital information and it has several if not many lore holes that need to be filled. One such example is when the Ruby Queen was contacted by the divine spirit and was granted her abilities. There is little information about the Orcs as well and I half expected the Ruby Queen to throw a bit of a tantrum as to why Orcs were there. The Side Quest also says that it's an Orc Camp even though they set up a decently big base that was very well defended. There is also little to no information about the Undead and the Elves as well.
3) There's a bug with the Metal Smith where you can't upgrade Leather Armor even though you have the Town Hall upgraded into a Keep/Castle.
4) The dialogue between Mograin and Danith was very flat and dry. They skipped formalities, no introductions were required and were oddly quick to team up and travel together after a brief exchange of words.
5) The conversation between Harmos and Mal'Goroth was odd to say the least. Mal'Goroth was quick to give out presumably vital information as well as accept a human turned traitor under his command AND give him a decently powerful item.
6) Ruby Queen has 5 lvls available for her Q skill (not sure if it was intentional or if it's a bug)
7) After you use Ruby Queen's ultimate her avatar form retains the shield and sword in her normal form.
8) The Archnecromancers are very, very weak and could use some stronger stats and rework to make them formidable enemies.

Aside from this I would say that it's a promising campaign. I'll look forward to further developments.

 

[DwarfBoy]

I should probably come in right now, since I do want to try and work on this more, but do to personal issues and Warcraft 3's World Editor being difficult, I don't know if I'll be working on this again.
If I do decide to work on this again, I want to do a complete reboot with some changes to the dialog and such. However, it seems like I'd be better off making a novel-ish sort of thing instead.

I do want to quickly touch on this.

I feel that the story lacks vital information and it has several if not many lore holes that need to be filled. One such example is when the Ruby Queen was contacted by the divine spirit and was granted her abilities. There is little information about the Orcs as well and I half expected the Ruby Queen to throw a bit of a tantrum as to why Orcs were there. The Side Quest also says that it's an Orc Camp even though they set up a decently big base that was very well defended. There is also little to no information about the Undead and the Elves as well.

That was intentional. I wanted to do squeals and such that expanded more on the world and lore of TRC. I even wanted to do an RPG Maker game called "The Ruby Crusade: Origins" which went into the backstory of Vanessa and how she became the Ruby Queen.

 

[Wazzz]

It sounds a little bit like preparation a little too far in advance for something that may or may not get continued. If you do continue with this or establish a reboot, I recommend making things a little more well-rounded, have the story develop organically but don't withhold too much information in favor of revealing something later that may not come - instead, gauge the success and work the story around what you started with, and expand upon it from there.