[Campaign] Troll Campaign

[frostwhisper]

"It is a time of peace on the world of Azeroth. The Zandalari, chief among the troll tribes have established a thriving civilization along the slopes of the Zandalar Mountains - the ancestral homeland of all trolls. After splitting off from their progenitors a few generations ago, other tribes have spread throughout the world's lone continent, claiming dominion over Azeroth's jungles, forests and frozen northlands. Although each tribe is unique to a degree, all trolls share a common reverence towards the Azeroth's wild gods - the Loa."

Troll Campaign is set 16,000 years before the events of the Warcraft RTS series. This is an Azeroth before the kingdoms of men and elves, before the Burning Legion's invasion sundered the world-spanning continent of Kalimdor. This is a primal world, where the forces of nature are untamed, and the pantheon of wild gods, the Loa, are an uncontested power. There are, however, forces on this world which are older than the Loa themselves. Forgotten by history, faded into myth, these ancient threats' resurgence will plunge Azeroth into war and reshape it forever.

The wider narrative adheres to the canon of the Warcraft universe, but most personal storylines and characters are original.

	Oriss	An adept Venomancer
	Zan'do	A Shadowhunter with dark aspirations
	Kruppe	A merchant plagued by premonitions
	Rendar Kan	A Gurubashi enforcer PROFILE
	Kith'ix	A general of the Old Gods

More characters are expected to join the roster as the project and story unfolds.

Troll Campaign will feature a variety of mission styles, ranging from single-Hero RPG focus to macro-oriented base-building RTS gameplay. The player will take control of the troll tribes - a fully custom race techtree is under development. Additionally, as a design goal, I intend to give the player a certain amount of choice in approaching the campaign's quests and challenges. Some quests may be solved in more than one way, some less obvious than others. On occasion, dialogue between characters can be player-controlled, dictating how a cutscene plays out, and affecting future story beats.

To maximize immersion, the campaign will feature a wide variety of custom assets, including models, voicepacks, music and a custom user interface.

So far, the first chapter of the story is more or less complete. Level design and triggering are done. Optimizing the trigger code to minimize leaks is still on the to-do list. I am uploading the chapter in this thread, and encourage anyone interested to give it a go. I should mention, this is a passion project which has been and will remain a learning experience for me, so your feedback will play a key part in making the completed campaign a reality.

Troll Tribes Techtree - INFO PENDING UPDATE

Level Design Screenshots

At the moment located in this thread.

Note: This project has been developed for classic Warcraft III patch 1.29. For all intents and purposes, I intend to keep it this way for the time being. As such, I am not aware of the project's stability on later patches. If folks are willing to run it on patches 1.30 and beyond, I will greatly appreciate the feedback.

03/08/2022 - Troll Campaign v1.4a Changelog

Spoiler

• Chapters 3 and 4 are now fully playable:

Chapter 3: Children of the Void - an extensive micro mission, featuring rich lore, unique and challenging bosses, submaps, puzzles, and more.
Chapter 4: Tunnel Vision - a hectic macro mission where you can employ the (near) full arsenal of the troll techtree against multiple enemies.
The new chapters feature countless new assets, custom tilesets, and custom music.

• Reworked Kruppe's Summon Shop ability. The shop is now constantly present on the map; activating the ability will instantly move the shop in front of Kruppe.
• Added a new event in Chapter 1's first quest, ensuring that the player meets Kruppe.
• Updated the Ravager model to now correctly match its mounted version.
• Chief Turanga now has a unique model.
• Many minor bug fixes, tooltip changes, ability optimizations, and balance modifications.

21/09/2021 - Troll Campaign v1.2b Changelog

Spoiler

• Optimized passives:

The Heroes' passive on-hit abilities have had their triggers reworked.
Serpent's Guile, Mortal Wound, and Forged in Battle now run smoother, greatly reducing the memory load on the game, particularly in larger battles. This should greatly improve Chapter 2's overall performance as well as future chapters going forward.

• New transparency system:

The transparency system has been updated. Now any unit entering a house/tent will trigger the transparency, and multiple units entering/exiting will not interfere with each other. Special thanks to @Rayman90 for his work on the passives and transparency optimization.

• Updated campaign screen:

The campaign screen has been optimized, and a new introduction sequence has been added.

• Fixed an issue where Kruppe dying in the first part of his quest causes a defeat screen.
• The campaign's in-game description now has the correct version listed.

13/07/2021 - Troll Campaign v1.2a Changelog

Spoiler

Chapter 1 - The Dark Stone

• Minor bug fixes, tooltip, and name amendments
• Several abilities have updated icons
• New title sequence to match Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - The Empty Fist

• All quests now fully playable
• All cinematics complete, nearly all skippable
• Initial troll race techtee revamped, changes will be reflected in the OP soon
• Note: Kruppe's Shop of Wonders icon and model are placeholders in this version

02/04/2021 - Troll Campaign v1.1f Changelog

Spoiler

Chapter 1 - The Dark Stone
This should be considered the definitive version of Map 1.

• Oriss' basic abilities have been redesigned
• Venom Spray now leaves a damaging pool of poison behind
• Evasion is replaced by Serpent's Guile, applying debuffs (chance to miss, movement speed slow, attack speed slow) on attack
• Zan'do now has a custom voicepack
• Zan'do's armor corruption ability has been reduced from 3/4/5 to 1/2/4
• Xal'atath's critical strike chance reduced from 20% to 15%
• Xal'atath's critical strike damage reduced from 2x to 1.5x
• Branch of the Ancients damage bonus reduced from +8 to +2
• Hero experience is now capped at level 5
• Fixed several issues where floating text dialogue appears over the wrong unit or doesn't follow the speaker
• Forest Spirit floating text is now white to avoid a clash with the background
• The Devilsaur is now invulnerable
• The Devilsaur cutscene and dialogue have been updated
• Tree doodads at the grotto entrance are now invulnerable prior to the Jungle Trek quest completion
• Sapling creeps around the Forest Spirit are invunerable while neutral
• Added a Hearthstone ability to the Camp to avoid excessive backtracking during the Into the Unknown and Elemental Upheaval quests
• Oriss is now unable to enter the kobold cave without carrying the Blood Orb
• Minimap now pings dark stone location during the Into the Unknown quest
• Minimap now pings cave entrance during the Blood Harvest quest
• Minimap now pings dark stone location upon completion of the Blood Harvest quest
• The Void Revenant fight area is slightly larger
• The Void Revenant's abilities have been tweaked
• Some doodad models updated with higher quality versions
• Various updates to icons of abilities and items
• Optional Quest givers and units featuring possible dialogue now have graphical indicators matching the style of Map 2 and going forward
• Quest messages updated to match the style of Map 2 and going forward
• Various additional hints throughout the map
• Minor typos and tooltips amended

Chapter 2 - The Empty Fist
This version includes the as of yet unfinished version of Map 2. If you'd like to give the first few quests a go, keep in mind the triggering is not all there.

27/06/2020 - Troll Campaign v1.1b Changelog

Spoiler

Forest Spirit cutscene is now skippable.
Arrival at the Dark Stone cutscene is now skippable.
Floating text dialogue now moves with the unit it belongs to.
Addressed an issue where transparency-capable buildings/trees didn't display in fog of war.
Main Quest 4 now displays creatures killed on a leaderboard, in addition to the Quest Log.
Zan'do now drops all items except his dagger at the start of Main Quest 4.
All units that are no longer controllable drop their items at the start of Main Quest 4.
Killing the Saurok Champion now grants a reward.
Camps now provide 24 supply, up from 20.
The Kobold negotiator now has an exclamation mark attachment to indicate dialogue.
The amount of tome powerups throughout the map has been adjusted.
Fixed errors in Witch Doctor and Spiritbender tooltips.
Fixed error in Headhunter upgrades display.
Spirit Raptor timer now displays "Spirit Raptor" instead of "Summoned Unit".
New skybox for grotto/underground cutscenes.
UI update - unusable inventory slots on non-Hero units no longer use the Human UI texture.
New feature - item combinations. Some items can now be combined. Such items have a "can be combined with" tooltip. Note: this is still at an early stage, I'm currently deciding on how to progress the idea (recipes, multiple combination options, combinations across maps, etc). Icons are very much a work in progress.

21/06/2020 - Troll Campaign v1.1 Changelog

Spoiler

As development on Map 2 commences, Map 1 has been transferred into a Campaign file.
Addressed an issue where clicking the treasure map doesn't ping the minimap after a save/load.
Addressed an issue where the Devilsaur cinematic didn't trigger correctly.
Optional Quest 1 now has prompts indicating how many vaults have been discovered.
Main Quest 1 now has periodic map pings to where the Caravan objective is.
Spiritbenders now become available at the start of Main Quest 3, rather than Main Quest 2.
The residents of Unmei Village are now invulnerable.
Several hints added/reworded to increase clarity.
Oriss' Spirit Raptor is now tankier.
Zan'do's Soul Nova ability reworked to be more consistent in terms of damage output.
Zan'do's Curse ability bonus damage reduced.
Minor typo and tooltip fixes.

18/06/2020 - Thread opened, uploaded version 1.0 of Chapter 1

This OP is a work in progress and will be updated regularly.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I'm just going to say this before even playing through the map - if you want this to be a campaign, you should start working on maps within the campaign editor as soon as possible. Getting separate maps working as a part of a custom campaign file can be a big pain in the butt.

---

Okay - first impression: this is really, really good.

Second impressions: there are some things that could be improved, like the abilities are pretty meh, but the presentation, especially terraining, are flat out awesome. I've also taken a look at your triggers and I must applaud how well organized you're keeping them.

I will have a detailed review and a list of suggestions for this tomorrow.

 

[tulee]

Really great to see more campaigns in the map development forum.

Note: This project has been developed for classic Warcraft III patch 1.29. For all intents and purposes, I intend to keep it this way for the time being. As such, I am not aware of the project's stability on later patches. If folks are willing to run it on patches 1.30 and beyond, I will greatly appreciate the feedback.

I wanted to reply to this.
Maps/campaigns have always been forward compatible. This is the general rule. That is why we can play campaigns that were made back in 2004 on modern versions.

There are only a number of reasons why this is not the case/exceptions to the rule.

1) Map/campaign made on a third party editor or used some kind of third party tool.
2) Map/campaign used some exploit that was fixed in a later version (return bug, other security issues).

For 1.30-1.32, many previous maps/campaigns have issues playing on them because there were a huge number of bugs left over in blizzard's rush to push out Reforged. There is nothing about those versions themselves that are incompatible with maps/campaigns made on previous versions. If Blizzard fixes all bugs, then anything made on past versions will work with the latest version of Wc3. That is only relevant to 1.30/1.31 though, since all the versions from 1.32 until right before whatever version fixes the bugs will not exist, since Bnet autoupdates before you can even access Warcraft 3, while 1.30/1.31 can still be pirated as a standalone game.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Okay, so I got sucked in - here's my the review... I'm just going to preface this by saying that while I'm decent at critical reviews, I totally suck at positive ones

1. Terraining, custom assets, presentation - it might not follow the advanced terraining standards (e.g. doesn't use elevate tool to make cliffs), but for the Blizzard-style terrain... it's just breathtaking. It's probably the best terraining work that I've seen in a custom campaign ever - it's incredibly well thought-out, rich in decorations, including a plethora of custom made assets that have clearly been selected to match the map's theme. And then there's custom music, custom UI, custom icons, etc.

I have this weird feeling that ol' @deepstrasz would love this one (don't tell anyone, but he likes maps with lots of custom stuff!)

Anyway - probably probably my favourite part was the moment where you go under the river (but the Kobold cave is a very close second). I suck at terraining, so I'm not sure how you did this, but it was awesome and looked gorgeous. Just like the rest of your map. Amazing job.

Rating: anything other than 10/10 would be unfair.

2. Writing, story - the Amani trader you free from the cage was the highlight of the competence of your writing, i.e. whenever you see someone being capable of providing distinct talking styles for different characters, you know you're in for a ride. A good one. In short: the writing is good. I usually find reasons to moan about it, but in the case of your campaign I honestly didn't see any issues. Not even a damn typo. It's obvious that a lot of polish went into this.

Rating: it's hard to judge the story by just one map, but from what I've seen it's also going for a 10/10 rating.

3. Gameplay, level design - my only complaint is that the main hero's abilities were a bit meh (I'll elaborate further in the suggestions) and... just like always, I don't condone changing default icons for custom ones if the ability remains unchanged. I mean, in your case I kinda get it, because you're going for a Troll theme, but then again - I think making abilities more interesting would go a long way.

Another criticism I have is that I feel that there were too many items and resources (gold, lumber) were too abundant. In the context of a single mission it isn't really a problem, but when designing the campaign, you will need to power creep item rewards chapter to chapter, at least a bit, to make sure that some of the new items are worth anything as rewards. That combined with an insane amount of stat/health tomes you get might result in the main hero becoming insanely overpowered after a couple of missions. I'd suggest you utilize more non-permanent upgrades and keep permanent items rather scarce.

All that said, overall the level design is really, really, really good. There's loads of stuff to find and fight, a lot of custom units and items, the core gameplay loop is engaging, interesting and balanced, even if after saving the caravan the difficulty drops a bit, the variety of abilities combined with custom hotkeys works wonders to make it easy to use abilities, there are some interesting mechanics (e.g. Ravasaur, bandit raids, setting up camp <3) and gameplay variety.

Overall the experience was very satisfying.

And finally - the map is very polished. The only bugs (?) that I've encountered is a tip about the guards closing the city gates - and I'm not sure if it's a bug or if it was supposed to work this way, but it felt a bit random. Also the cutscene where the forest spirit gave you a mission was not skippable.
Other than that, everything just worked.

Rating: 8/10

---

Total rating - 28/30 -> 9,5/10 -> if this was an upload in the map section, I'd give it 5 stars. Amazing job.

---

Some other minor issues and suggestions:
- You're very stingy on pinging the minimap for quest objectives - it's not really a problem, since the map is fairly linear, but I think I'd still prefer to have it.
- Your choice for doing dialogues (quest messages instead of transmissions) seems strange.
- I feel the map is lacking some quest updates - for example when doing the treasure quest, there's no quest message update on how many you've done. Seems weird.
- I've tried attacking other trolls in town and got no reaction - either make them all invulnerable or have something happen.
- Last quest could use a nice counter to track how many you've killed.
- And the saurok guy could have some reward for killing him

---

Also - played on 1.31.1 and it worked fine.

 

[PROXY]

First and foremost: didn't expect this so soon, but man am I glad

There will be many edits of this post, seeing as I will update it as I progress through the game.

I'm not going to provide indepth feedback, but a few thoughts I'd like to share:

ramblings

- After loading a save, the ping map treasure item didn't work anymore.
- As already mentioned, there's too many items/tomes/etc. Already in the first couple of minutes my inventory was nearly full. Also, if there was a pair of crates/boxes/chests almost always the first one would award you with an item, which kinda removed the anticipation and tension.
- In my opinion, custom items are a great way for environmental storytelling. Which is why I think it's a shame that in a world so rich of storytelling possibilites (and you clearly are capable of it) you still find "Slippers of Agility", "Jade Ring", "Claws of Attack". I'm super dissapointed when I find those things in any game. We've seen them countless times before, they add nothing of value to the game (besides their stat) and it's just a dull feeling if you defeat a boss/open a crate/discover a treasure and there are those items. IMO the only thing you have to change is the icon, the name, and perhaps add some flavor text to the item: Slippers of Agility --> Fisherman's Treads // Claws of Attack --> Gurubashi Hatchet... you get what I mean.
- I know having gold bounties from creeps is a standard wc3 thing, but it breaks immersion greatly IMO. I never saw the sense in getting gold from killing a wolf. Of yourse, if you're going the full RTS route, sure, makes sense mechanical wise. But I'd rather see actual gold coin items drop from humanoid creatures and perhaps healing items like meat, or other consumables drop from beasts.
- I was kind of running out of health and mana all the time. I'm pretty rusty from standard wc3 campaign playing, so that might have been the problem lol. --> Edit: This became obsolete after meeting Kruppe, as I had a fair share of items and was also able to buy all of his tomes.
- The music and ambience is great. Not sure if its actual wow music from Zandalar but it definetly feels like it. As already mentioned the terrain is great, and hits the classic wc3 feel spot on. Nostalgia train is inbound!
- One suggestion I would have, which might be worth a try, would be to export female troll voices from the wow database and try to reuse them for the soundset of the main hero. I did this a couple of times already and it did wonders for immersion! I've basically never seen this done before but its just a great way to give your character more personality and make her unique. And the "pissed" soundsets from WoW are equally, and sometimes even more entertaining then the ones from wc3. You should definetly check them out!
- Make the spirit raptor a bit stronger, or let 2 be summoned while levelling up.
- If you plan to add rarity to items (which is a personal preference of mine) I can supply you with chest item models that show the item rarity color, similar to diablo 3.

Edit:

Wow, didn't expect multiple choice dialogues. That's a nice twist!

Edit2:
I came upon a bug where I moved to quickly to the devilsaur before the cinematic started, killing me and failing the game.

Edit3:

Spoiler

Xal'atah for the Win! What a nice idea to hide it in plain sight in the inventory of Zan'do. Really hit me like a truck and already forshadowing events!

Edit4: I would have liked to gain the new units slowly over time. Getting all of them at once, and gaining 4 new unit abilities as well as a whole hero to work with was overwhelming. Would have been nice to gain a headhunter somewhere who was injured or trapped, and also a spriritbender or witchdoctor somewhere along the way, before meeting the caravan. This would also ease you into slowly preparing you for more micro management.

Additionally to that, maybe 1 or 2 units to replace lost/dead units might have been nice. I lost both witchdoctors early on because of an oversight and had to work without them till the end.

Edit5: Just came to my mind: Why would a Druid of the Loa be the apprentice of a shadowhunter? I'm not super familiar with troll culture but does that make sense? Its a minor thing but still caught my eye.

Edit6: There were lots of runes of mana but nearly no runes of health. A few more would have been making it a tad easier, seeing as I never ran out of mana after the first half of the game.

Edit7: In the cave I realised I was able to solo pull enemies from groups with the ranged attacks of Zan'do. I do not know why or if this is a common issue in wc3, but it greatly helped me after I had no units left. The crit effect of Xal'atath and stacking of attack damage icons made this pretty easily.

Edit8: Was I supposed to get the build a camp item before venturing into the caverns? Because I only got it after finding the darkstone. This might have made things considerably easier lol.

Edit9: Would have been nice to drop Zan'do's items after having to go harvest the blood from the creatures. He got all the nice items because of my solo pulls and left my hero with just the consumables, which was a shame.

Edit10: Never thought I'd feel bad about killing kobolds.. ugh.

Edit11: After going to the kobolds the camp changed ownership to Zan'do, making it impossible to recruit new units but also no kobolds, after siding with them.

FINAL EDIT:

What a beast!

Spoiler

Old gods? Betrayal? Blood rituals?

Man I love it. The map was surprisingly long, which led to my huge number of edits, which I apologize for, but I didn't expect it. An amazing start to a very promising campaign, I'm sure. Can't wait for new stuff! (Now I wanna continue on my own campaign lol)

 

[frostwhisper]

First off thank you for the feedback! I'll try to address most of what you've told me so far.

Maps/campaigns have always been forward compatible. This is the general rule. That is why we can play campaigns that were made back in 2004 on modern versions.

Thank you for clarifying. Honestly lifts a weight off my chest, because I was dreading having to force anyone looking to play this to downgrade.

...probably my favourite part was the moment where you go under the river...

Thanks! To achieve this effect I used a combination of elevated rocks with zero collision, flattened waterfall doodads and pathing blockers. I'm glad you appreciate it.

I think making abilities more interesting would go a long way.

This is definitely a fair point. I have used almost exclusively untriggered abilities for this first map, so there is potential for development.

Another criticism I have is that I feel that there were too many items and resources (gold, lumber) were too abundant.

This is good insight. A bit of a tunnel-vision issue, so it's good to be reminded of the wider scope. The powercreep concern is very real and is a point of balancing that will be addressed.

...is a tip about the guards closing the city gates - and I'm not sure if it's a bug or if it was supposed to work this way, but it felt a bit random. Also the cutscene where the forest spirit gave you a mission was not skippable.

The tip was basically the game telling you that you can't go back to the town after you've crossed a certain threshold. I can see why it comes across as confusing however, so the wording could be improved. The forest spirit and dark stone arrival cutscenes are not skippable at the moment, mostly because they feature multiple-choice dialogues. The Kruppe one is skippable despite that fact (albeit looking a bit clunky imo), so adding skippability to those scenes is on the to-do list.

Quest updates do appear in the Quest Log (X/3 vaults looted, or X/50 creatures killed), but I can see how the clarity could be increased. Ditto with map pings.

- After loading a save, the ping map treasure item didn't work anymore.

I'm looking into it. Tried to replicate the bug, though unsuccessfully.

- In my opinion, custom items are a great way for environmental storytelling.

I see where you're coming from. The idea of those items (in the beginning at least) was to fill the niche of "trash" items typical for early progressions in an RPG. It is a good suggestion to give items a more setting-adequate polish however.

- The music and ambience is great. Not sure if its actual wow music from Zandalar but it definetly feels like it.

The music is from actual WoW. Sticking to Blizz music feels appropriate for the setting. The former half of the map features music from actual WoW Zandalar in Battle for Azeroth, while the latter uses tracks from the Zandalari areas in Mists of Pandaria.

- One suggestion I would have, which might be worth a try, would be to export female troll voices from the wow database and try to reuse them for the soundset of the main hero.

I did that in an earlier build of the map actually! However the voice felt too passive and a bit repetative, so I opted for the Qhira voice from HotS instead. Male/female troll voices for WoW are definitely useful to me though (the former is used for the worker unit soundset and the latter will be useful for potential female NPCs).

- Make the spirit raptor a bit stronger, or let 2 be summoned while levelling up.

Raptor strength revision is on the to-do list.

- If you plan to add rarity to items (which is a personal preference of mine) I can supply you with chest item models that show the item rarity color, similar to diablo 3.

I hadn't considered it, but it's a good idea. I'd love to take a look at those, cheers!

I came upon a bug where I moved to quickly to the devilsaur before the cinematic started, killing me and failing the game.

I've encountered this before and for the love of me could not figure out why it occurs. The cinematic triggers when a hero enters a certain region, so it should work without fault. In any case, I've recreated the trigger to work based on distance from the Devilsaur rather than entering a specific region, so this bug should (hopefully) never occur again.

I would have liked to gain the new units slowly over time. Getting all of them at once, and gaining 4 new unit abilities as well as a whole hero to work with was overwhelming.

Noted. I've got some ideas on how to make it all flow smoother.

There were lots of runes of mana but nearly no runes of health.

I did this intentionally, because it encourages the use of healing wards. However I can see it getting frustrating if you're short on witchdoctors, so a slight variation of runes might be in order. Will look into it.

Was I supposed to get the build a camp item before venturing into the caverns?

Yes. As soon as you get the "build a camp quest" there's one Camp Supplies item behind each surviving Caravan Beast. Then you get an additional one when you're sent on the blood harvest. Perhaps a hint popping up to make sure the player doesn't miss them the first time around is in order.

Would have been nice to drop Zan'do's items...

I actually rigged it to drop the Branch of the Ancient in case he had it on him, and the dagger is meant to be for his use only, but I can see straight-up having him drop all his stuff (sans the dagger) as an option to avoid frustration and allow for more item choice.

After going to the kobolds the camp changed ownership to Zan'do, making it impossible to recruit new units but also no kobolds, after siding with them.

I'll look into that. The camp should change to Zan'do, but only after the "kill 50" quest is finished.

Once again, thank you for the feedback. This is very valuable, and has already brought things to my attention which I would have otherwise missed. Improvements on the way, will be logged in the changelog.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I'm looking into it. Tried to replicate the bug, though unsuccessfully.

It's probably due to a known 1.31.1 bug where certain specific unit events don't work after loading a game:
1.31.1 [Bug] Loading saved game breaks some unit events

This can be easily fixed by replacing the specific unit event with generic unit event and a proper condition, like this:

• Click the map
  • Events
    • Unit - A unit Uses an item
  • Conditions
    • (Triggering unit) Equal to Druid of the Loa 0000 <gen>
    • ((Item being manipulated) is Invulnerable) Equal to True
  • Actions
    • Cinematic - Ping minimap for (All players) at (Center of Jungle Vault 1 <gen>) for 2.00 seconds
    • Cinematic - Ping minimap for (All players) at (Center of Jungle Vault 2 <gen>) for 2.00 seconds
    • Cinematic - Ping minimap for (All players) at (Center of Jungle Vault 3 <gen>) for 2.00 seconds

I'd recommend that you read the thread above and then go through your triggers to fix these issues to make the map compatible with 1.31.1, just so more people can play it without problems Also, while we're at it - is there a reason why you used boolean condition instead of an item-type one?

I have used almost exclusively untriggered abilities for this first map, so there is potential for development.

I have some ideas for abilities, so if you'd want suggestions just let me know.

The forest spirit and dark stone arrival cutscenes are not skippable at the moment, mostly because they feature multiple-choice dialogues. The Kruppe one is skippable despite that fact (albeit looking a bit clunky imo), so adding skippability to those scenes is on the to-do list.

I think all should be skippable - I mean, if someone wants to skip a cutscene then chances are he's probably not that interested in the extra lore from multiple-choice dialogues either, ergo it should be fine to just skip them to the end. The only instance where I could see cinematics not being entirely skippable is when you get to choose how you're going to proceed, i.e. select whether you kill the tree dude or go after the phoenix for the side quest, but even then I feel it would be fair to slowly fade them out, show the choice and exit upon clicking the dialog button

Quest updates do appear in the Quest Log (X/3 vaults looted, or X/50 creatures killed)

I think the best way to do this would be:
a) For treasure vaults - just regular quest update messages.
b) For killing creatures - I didn't look into the quest log... Anyway, I don't think updating it through quests/quest log is the way, imo it would be better if you used a leaderboard to have a counter up on the screen

 

[frostwhisper]

Good stuff, man, thank you! I'll keep that in mind going forward, and I'll address this in the existing triggers.

As for using a boolean condition - those were some of the earliest triggers I wrote and I was literally learning how to do it as I went along. I didn't know item-type conditions existed at the time. Since I never used another invulnerable item in the map I just let it use its old condition.

 

[frostwhisper]

Update time.

As development on Map 2 commences, Map 1 has been transferred into a Campaign file.
Addressed an issue where clicking the treasure map doesn't ping the minimap after a save/load.
Addressed an issue where the Devilsaur cinematic didn't trigger correctly.
Optional Quest 1 now has prompts indicating how many vaults have been discovered.
Main Quest 1 now has periodic map pings to where the Caravan objective is.
Spiritbenders now become available at the start of Main Quest 3, rather than Main Quest 2.
The residents of Unmei Village are now invulnerable.
Several hints added/reworded to increase clarity.
Oriss' Spirit Raptor is now tankier.
Zan'do's Soul Nova ability reworked to be more consistent in terms of damage output.
Zan'do's Curse ability bonus damage reduced.
Minor typo and tooltip fixes.

You can find the latest file in the OP.

@MasterBlaster I didn't see your edits when I was replying. By all means, if you've got ideas regarding abilities and anything else, shoot them my way.

 

[MasterBlaster]

@MasterBlaster I didn't see your edits when I was replying. By all means, if you've got ideas regarding abilities and anything else, shoot them my way.

I'm going to be away for a couple of days, but sure - once I come back, I'll post my suggestions

 

[Kyrbi0]

*looks at unfinished Troll race & campaign*

Frickin frick.

I've been out-veteran'd. xD

 

[Kam]

Good to see you back buddy!

 

[Kyrbi0]

Even though I know it will be the 'flame' to my 'moth', you cannot possibly post your Techtree WIP quickly enough. : ) Looking forward to it.

 

[cleavinghammer]

NPCs with lines should be marked with exclamation marks or such.

Kruppe music plays at the same time as the normal music.

Spirit Raptor's timer should say Spirit Raptor instead of Summoned Unit.

Witch Doctor tooltips mention Binding Ward, not Tiki Curse.

Spiritbender tooltips mention Chain Lightning, not Spell Steal.

Headhunters have armor upgrades but not damage.

Buggy tooltip for Soul Nova.

Soul Nova should be targeted or have a wider AoE.

Oriss' poison spray and bats seem redundant with each other.

Variable-transparency doodads aren't visible in the fog of war, which looks especially weird for trees.

Some ambushing/"hidden" enemies (the raptor pack in the SW vault, the elder hydra under a World Tree, the Forest Spirit) are visible due to their health bars.

Camp should give more than 20 food, since keeping all your units alive prevents you from training more.

No comment about the rocks blocking the camp. Also, I though that was the bandits' camp, are there only three waves of bandits?

Stone chamber cutscenes should use the underground dome doodad, as you can see the trees in the skybox.

Previously-owned units should drop the items they carried when they transfer.

Oriss' comments should be messages rather than floating text, as it's possible to miss them.

Kobold buildings should have healthbars, otherwise they look like doodads.

Saurok Champion doesn't drop anything?

-

Terrain is beautiful. I like the skybox, it conveys a bigger world much better than the usual one.

Very good start so far, I eagerly await the next one.

 

[frostwhisper]

Some solid points, @cleavinghammer . I'll be rolling out an update that addresses some of the issues you've mentioned soon. You've also brought some new things to my attention. I'm particularly interested in Kruppe's music and the Soul Nova tooltip, as those are bugs which I haven't been able to replicate. If you could elaborate what the tooltip bug is and which version you're playing on that would help.

@Kyrbi0 Glad you're interested! Once I drop the next version, I'll be updating the OP with some techtree info, so stay tuned.

@Kam Appreciate it!

Map 2 is currently in the layout stage. Unlike Map 1, it will feature a mixture of micro and macro gameplay. Looking forward to showing you guys more.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Tooltip's last sentence is "Lasts Deals 40 damage each hit."

I think it's the latest version, I downloaded it yesterday.

 

[MogulKahn]

I won't be playing demo versions because I don't want to spoil story and gameplay, but I will keep track about the progress in this thread. Keep up with the amazing work, mate!

You have taken part in previous terraining and writing contests and was pretty successful with it, so I expect much from you and this campaign.

 

[frostwhisper]

Update is up. The OP now also includes a preview of the Troll Techtree in it's current iteration.

Troll Campaign v1.1b
Forest Spirit cutscene is now skippable.
Arrival at the Dark Stone cutscene is now skippable.
Floating text dialogue now moves with the unit it belongs to.
Addressed an issue where transparency-capable buildings/trees didn't display in fog of war.
Main Quest 4 now displays creatures killed on a leaderboard, in addition to the Quest Log.
Zan'do now drops all items except his dagger at the start of Main Quest 4.
All units that are no longer controllable drop their items at the start of Main Quest 4.
Killing the Saurok Champion now grants a reward.
Camps now provide 24 supply, up from 20.
The Kobold negotiator now has an exclamation mark attachment to indicate dialogue.
The amount of tome powerups throughout the map has been adjusted.
Fixed errors in Witch Doctor and Spiritbender tooltips.
Fixed error in Headhunter upgrades display.
Spirit Raptor timer now displays "Spirit Raptor" instead of "Summoned Unit".
New skybox for grotto/underground cutscenes.
UI update - unusable inventory slots on non-Hero units no longer use the Human UI texture.

New feature - item combinations. Some items can now be combined. Such items have a "can be combined with" tooltip. Note: this is still at an early stage, I'm currently deciding on how to progress the idea (recipes, multiple combination options, combinations across maps, etc). Icons are very much a work in progress.

 

[MogulKahn]

Are we playing as Jungle or Zandalari Trolls? Kind of confusing at the moment. Because I can see that majority of units are Jungle Trolls, while those big dinosaurs are from Zandalari. At least, if we follow lore strictly.

 

[Kyrbi0]

I was thinking the same thing, but then I reread the preface: this is waaaay back in history, ostensibly before the Troll tribes split up (thus a combination of kinds of Trolls).

I'm curious, though; where'd you get the model for your Altar? (Also, can't wait to see the Heroes! and the unit models)

 

[lichao001486]

Hello Mr.Frostwhisper
This Troll Campaign is really very good.
And about Troll Techtree, I think it would be better to replace the Bat (rider) with the Pteranodon (rider). Because all the other beast unit are Dinosaurs.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Frostwhisper, quick question: how to play?

I put your campaign file into the "Campaign" folder of my 1.29 Warcraft 3 installation, but it doesn't appear in the "Custom Campaign" tab of the game itself.

(I'll be honest, I've been on hiatus for nearly 2 years & even before then I barely played custom campaigns, so I'm probably missing something obvious)

 

[frostwhisper]

You'll be playing with several troll factions as the story evolves. The techtree will be meant to encompass trolls as a whole. Basically all tribes banding together and bringing something to the table. The focus in the beginning will be on jungle trolls, as they are the most predominant group at this stage of the story. Also, while following the general lore, I am taking some creative liberties (Gurubashi taming dinosaurs seems logical during the setting's timeframe, and adheres to the Rule of Cool).

However, for all the forest/ice/zandalari lovers out there, I've got some ideas of how to spice the techtree up later on, by giving the player a choice of committing to a particular tribe for the current mission, granting them additional units/buildings/upgrades based on that tribe. For example, in addition to the current techtree you get bear riders, should you choose the Amani, or high priests should you choose the Zandalari. The gameplay variety potentials of such a move are quite inspiring to me.

@Kyrbi0 the altar model came from here. I took Ujimasa's Altar of the Loa and made some very slight modifications (different floating masks and the mask on the spirit troll made to be corporeal). I've attached the model, if you want to have a closer look.

With regards to playing the campaign - you'll need to put it under C:\Users\You\Documents\Warcraft III\Campaigns, rather than the War3 installation folder. It's a (slightly annoying) quirk from newer patches. I found out the hard way, myself.

@lichao001486 Hey, thanks! More custom assets to browse through are always welcome. I'll definitely have a look.

 

[MogulKahn]

Mr. stein123 shared many troll models to me. You may need them.

model path:
Troll models | HIVE

I am not sure if it is OK to share someone else's resource that he privately shared with you.

 

[frostwhisper]

Actually stein came in touch with me a few days ago with the same resource packs, so I believe there was no ill intent.

 

[MogulKahn]

Are you planning to change texture of Spirit Nexus building? In my opinion, it stands out next to the other buildings. Also, again my opinion, but that Ravager model never looked like a Troll in my eyes. More of a Troll-Orc mix. He needs a bigger nose.

 

[lichao001486]

I am not sure if it is OK to share someone else's resource that he privately shared with you.

Sorry, I will ask Stein's permission.

 

[Nainbus]

Hello how can i install it? it's in campaign or maps? =s

it's a great idea !

 

[cleavinghammer]

It goes in the Campaigns folder (as do all files ending in .w3n).

 

[Nainbus]

It goes in the Campaigns folder (as do all files ending in .w3n).

ok it need the W3 patch 1.29 ? i play under 1.28 =s

 

[lichao001486]

Found a very good troll fly unit model. Troll Manticore Riders
Troll Manticore Rider VII & Manticore Creep (riderless)

 

[lichao001486]

Any news about the campaign?

 

[Chucky]

It crashed when loading the map units, game version 1.27...

 

[Kyrbi0]

It's made for version 1.29. You should be able to play it with later versions, but almost certainly not with earlier versions.

 

[Chucky]

well, I thought it would work since my game could see it...not going to buy Reforged, not giving my money to that fat fuck CEO, I rather quit Warcraft...

 

[Kyrbi0]

IIRC you don't have to buy Reforged; you can just use an updated copy of the game (WARNING: make sure to make a backup of your current (1.27) version, because once it updates you obviously can't go back. I've successfully kept my v1.26 safe from the updater by just putting it in a separate folder, and both that & the latest version work fine.

And/or, you can check around the Hive; they've got a thread going with installers & patchers for most all the versions in between you & Reforged. Could just grab a 1.29 installation to play this on.

 

[Chucky]

IIRC you don't have to buy Reforged; you can just use an updated copy of the game (WARNING: make sure to make a backup of your current (1.27) version, because once it updates you obviously can't go back. I've successfully kept my v1.26 safe from the updater by just putting it in a separate folder, and both that & the latest version work fine.

And/or, you can check around the Hive; they've got a thread going with installers & patchers for most all the versions in between you & Reforged. Could just grab a 1.29 installation to play this on.

Did I mention that my version is Arghhhh, ye mateys ! Walk the plank, ya scurvy dog ! ))))))

 

[Kyrbi0]

Ah, well... Yeah that might be hard.' I'd encourage you to buy an official version, then. Don't think of it as anything more than getting what you want. : )

 

[frostwhisper]

Small updates. Work on Map 2 is going slow, but steady.
In my spare time I've also been working on a main screen for the campaign missions. Here's a look of what I've got going so far:

 

[cleavinghammer]

Looking good!

 

[stein123]

Awesome!!

 

[Kyrbi0]

Frick man, jealous. Verah Noice.

 

[lichao001486]

Good job.

 

[Paillan]

Hello there...
I don't know if it was destiny or what, but we are making the same campaign.
Yes, for the past 4 years I've worked in this same scenario as a campaign. 3 maps, 4 techtree's, 8 heroes. All already done.
In terms of things not done yet, there's the aqir techtree which is non existant. As well as map 4 and testing... lots and lots of testing.
If you need proof of my work I can provide screenshots, WIP models, the actual campaign file.
Now I am not saying you should drop the campaign, maybe we can even work together, I am mildly optimistic.
I am telling you this because we will bump into each other, I was planning to make a reveal end this year or next year on February at most.
Thanks and I hope to hear from you.

 

[YetAnotherYoutuber]

once customs become playable again, i'd be interested in this, nevertheless i have no idea whats the problem with two projects existing at the same time with the same thematic. so long as the story is different, it shouldnt matter, should it?

 

[PROXY]

Hello there...
I don't know if it was destiny or what, but we are making the same campaign.
Yes, for the past 4 years I've worked in this same scenario as a campaign. 3 maps, 4 techtree's, 8 heroes. All already done.
In terms of things not done yet, there's the aqir techtree which is non existant. As well as map 4 and testing... lots and lots of testing.
If you need proof of my work I can provide screenshots, WIP models, the actual campaign file.
Now I am not saying you should drop the campaign, maybe we can even work together, I am mildly optimistic.
I am telling you this because we will bump into each other, I was planning to make a reveal end this year or next year on February at most.
Thanks and I hope to hear from you.

once customs become playable again, i'd be interested in this, nevertheless i have no idea whats the problem with two projects existing at the same time with the same thematic. so long as the story is different, it shouldnt matter, should it?

Although it's none of my business, I'm with YAY here. What problem does it make if two campaigns coexist? Just keep on going independently ^^

 

[Paillan]

Well... we picked the same story... the troll aqir war. So yeah...

 

[PROXY]

Well... we picked the same story... the troll aqir war. So yeah...

Still. Won't be told in the same way anyway. I suggest to just keep on going without any trouble

 

[Kyrbi0]

It's not so much a "problem"; he's just letting him (and us) know ahead of time so it doesn't seem like he's copying or mimicking him when he releases.

@Paillan F in the chat, man; I too was beaten out by Frostwhisper (not specifically the Aqir war, but I've been working on a Troll faction & campaign for over a decade now). xD

 

[frostwhisper]

I'm a firm follower of the "the more troll content the better" tenet. The fact that other folks are working on similar content makes me happy. I'm going to stick to flying solo on this one, however I would gladly playtest your maps and brainstorm ideas with you.