- Joined
- Feb 19, 2011
- Messages
- 740
Greeting, fellow campaign enjoyers. A few months back I created a campaign featuring my Living Nerubian custom race. This was my first real experience with creating a campaign and there are many aspects that need improvements. I had a good time creating the missions and having people experience my race in a new light. Throughout the creating process I had many notes on the Living Nerubian race itself and all the notes helped me vastly improve it, practically overhauling the whole race for the better. Now I have plans to continue the story set by my first campaign with the Undead Nerubians.
As a short synopsis the story begins in the midst of the War of the Spider where the Lich King attempts to destroy the Nerubian kingdom. Undead forces having obtained major footholds across Northrend, but most importantly they are dangerously close to the assailing the capital. Remnants of Nerubian stationed far from the capital are ordered to return back to the outskirts of the capital in order to repel the growing threat. Having achieved victory the reinvigorated Nerubian forces spread across the lands taking more and more land back.
Now the Undead Nerubian campaign begins. The Lich King and the Dreadlords have amassed mighty army from the slain Nerubians and now plan to send their combined forces to the Nerubian capital.
I wanted to take some criticisms and suggestions serious in this campaign to improve the overall experience:
- Lack of Cinematics: When I made my first campaign I had a lack of knowledge and fear of creating these complicated events. A lot can go wrong if everything in the map is not accounted for while cinematics play. Plus making them all skippable adds additional layers of complexity that must be addressed. I have opted to add far more cinematics this go around. Now instead of one simple establishing cinematic at the start I have multiples appearing throughout the missions. Including optional quests and ends of the mission.
- Lack of Story: My main focus was to have the player experience the race through gameplay, that left the story severely lacking and many felt confused on what is going on. I aim to have a better story this go around. Having the Heroes have more personality, more gameplay reactions, far more dialogue.
- Lack of Map Variation: Having the story take place in Northrend I had made most of the story maps in a snowy tileset. Practically all of the maps had some snowy nature to them. Though the theme was fitting for the time and place I did not enjoy the staleness. Now I bring more areas of the Northrend map such as the Howling Fjord, Grizzly Hills, and even the Crystalsong Forest. A lot of the maps will also come with custom tilesets and assets to really flesh out the maps.
- Maps are Unnecessarily Large: One issue I still find myself struggling with is making my maps too large and the need to fill it with something, anything. I am attempting to shrink the maps and add more details to the areas that are playable.
- Choices: I decided to add a feature that I wanted to play around with for a while. Choices in missions that have affect on future missions. In this campaign all the missions will have an optional quest that will have an effect on the final mission. Some missions offer a choice on which ally to save, with enemy to dispatch off, or based on completing difficult tasks. The final mission will be highly customized depending on your previous choices.
- Playable Custom Race: In this campaign you take control of the Undead Nerubian, a completely new race offering new units, mechanics, and heroes.
- Varied Missions: For this campaign I want to make interesting missions with objectives that usually involve more than destroying an enemy base. Though the base destroying missions will exist, because well, this is Warcraft 3 and its fun, there will be more layers to complexity.
- Variable Difficulty: Just as my first campaign all maps have the option to play as Easy, Average, or Hard difficulty.
My biggest concern right now is having some play testers. I am sure my few friends are sick of me constantly pestering them to play my maps and give their opinions. Having a larger pool of ideas and feedback would help me greatly. The most difficult aspect is balance. As the creator of the maps I already know the best routes and timings of waves so my experience makes the maps fairly easy. However, the average player might find it exceedingly difficult. I need the perspective of that average player.
CHAPTER ONE: ORDER OF THE LICH KING
CHAPTER TWO: TREADING BATTLEFIELD
CHAPTER THREE: OKWAN'S CHALLENGE
- MISSION ONE: Orders of the Lich King - [Completed]
- MISSION TWO: Treading Battlefield - [Completed]
- MISSION THREE: Okwan's Challenge - [Completed]
- MISSION FOUR: War Funds - [Completed]
- MISSION FIVE: Rustling in the Dark - [Completed]
- MISSION SIX: Unfathomable Depths, Part 1 - [Completed]
- MISSION SEVEN: Unfathomable Depths, Part 2 - [Completed]
- MISSION EIGHT: Unfathomable Depths, Part 3 - [Completed]
- MISSION NINE: Caught in a Web - [Completed]
- MISSION TEN: Gate of Azjol-Nerub - [Completed]
- MISSION ELEVEN: Damnation of an Ancient Kingdom - [Completed]
- SECRET MISSION: Whispers from the Deep - [Completed]
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