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[Campaign] War of the Spider

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Level 24
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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.


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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.



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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.



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- 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.


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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.

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  • 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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This looks way cool! When you talk about making lots of cinematics, I'm curious what is your opinion on the theory that cinematics should always have the camera be moving? Recently I saw someone on YouTube interview one of the guys who made the original Warcraft 3 campaigns and this guy believed the always moving camera was important in making good cinematics. Sounded like that was a matter of his personal opinion. Or it might be based on some cinematography science. What do you think?
 
Level 22
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636
First of all, I can't proprely read violet text on black HIVE background :)
But I like the concept of your story - firstly you told us about living spiders, and now we playing as undead ones.
And side quests, that effects final mission - looks like a Legends of Arcain influence? :D

By the way, unusual story about nerubians? Pretty please!
And I don't understand - Undead Nerubian Campaign will take a story in Nerubian Campaign timeline or shortly after/before?
 
Level 23
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An interesting idea, I hope you get the result you are looking for. If you want some advice, take your time and don't be in a rush to finish it. On the other hand, I like the idea of alternative endings, but if you don't have a lot of experience creating campaigns, I don't really advise doing it. It can bring a lot of problems and conditions any continuation you want to do in the future, duplicating the work. Although if you have it clear and you manage to do it well, it looks great.

Regards.
 
Level 24
Joined
Feb 19, 2011
Messages
656
This looks way cool! When you talk about making lots of cinematics, I'm curious what is your opinion on the theory that cinematics should always have the camera be moving? Recently I saw someone on YouTube interview one of the guys who made the original Warcraft 3 campaigns and this guy believed the always moving camera was important in making good cinematics. Sounded like that was a matter of his personal opinion. Or it might be based on some cinematography science. What do you think?

I saw that video too, and I say that having it always move even in the slightest makes the experience better. So I opted to have the camera move the majority of the time.

First of all, I can't proprely read violet text on black HIVE background :)
But I like the concept of your story - firstly you told us about living spiders, and now we playing as undead ones.
And side quests, that effects final mission - looks like a Legends of Arcain influence? :D

By the way, unusual story about nerubians? Pretty please!
And I don't understand - Undead Nerubian Campaign will take a story in Nerubian Campaign timeline or shortly after/before?

Yeah that is true. Fixed the purple color issue.
Well I never played the Legends of Arcain series, but looks like great minds think alike haha

What do you mean unsual story?
The story continues shortly after the final mission of the Living Nerubian Campaign.

An interesting idea, I hope you get the result you are looking for. If you want some advice, take your time and don't be in a rush to finish it. On the other hand, I like the idea of alternative endings, but if you don't have a lot of experience creating campaigns, I don't really advise doing it. It can bring a lot of problems and conditions any continuation you want to do in the future, duplicating the work. Although if you have it clear and you manage to do it well, it looks great.

Regards.

Thank you. I think I can manage. This is not so much alternate endings but more so alternate gameplay options on the mission itself. For example, say you choose to save a Dreadlord ally instead of a Lich, then the final mission will have a Dreadlord ally that uses different unit composition and such. Save neither and the ally might just be a weaker hero-less AI.
 
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Level 22
Joined
Jun 11, 2017
Messages
636
Played beta mission, used classic graphics and on 1.32.10 version.
Completed on Normal.
Because only 1 mission, I'll mark down some notes about it & undead nerubian race:
  • Nice usage of WoW map as loading screen, I like it. And as I understood - beta mission is first?
  • And concept of recieving something from side quests in others missions I personally support - it pushes player to do everything the map offers, preventing them from map rushing. I said before that it resembles like-Arkain feature, but remembered that first encount of those was in Starcraft 1;
  • However, gold mines are… Messy one. Why I should increase number of fanes? When I have higher upkeep, I'll recieve maximum income from goldmine, but with high fane amount I'll quickly burn them out, so all undead nerubian style in midgame is aggressive rush?
  • Guards with stun seems pretty good feature. They helped me alot in mission, especially in base defending: stun mortars and towers just bring down others;
  • For what I should use my townhall spell? And worker blight? I don't found any situation where I can use it. Maybe it this mission yet;
  • Eh, endless assault from south dwarf base and you can't bring them down. And why wolfs are training from barracks?
  • And I think that rifleman training time was decreased a BIT, so quickly enemy train them...
  • In final cinematic hero looks into guards, but speaks with worker. Worker doesn't face hero, instead facing guards too.
And my personal favourable moment from walkthrough: when I was destroyed last barracks near last 3 fanes, I saw peasants that run from lumberwork and started rebuilding them. I'm just rushed and killed them, even when one of 2 new barracks was on 99% construction! Just 1642/1650! That was too close… :D

Anyway, I liked mission and undead nerubians race - they resembeled me some zerg/terran gameplay style from SC.
Looking forward for whole campaign!
 
Level 24
Joined
Feb 19, 2011
Messages
656
Played beta mission, used classic graphics and on 1.32.10 version.
Completed on Normal.
Because only 1 mission, I'll mark down some notes about it & undead nerubian race:

And my personal favourable moment from walkthrough: when I was destroyed last barracks near last 3 fanes, I saw peasants that run from lumberwork and started rebuilding them. I'm just rushed and killed them, even when one of 2 new barracks was on 99% construction! Just 1642/1650! That was too close… :D

Anyway, I liked mission and undead nerubians race - they resembeled me some zerg/terran gameplay style from SC.
Looking forward for whole campaign!

  • Nice usage of WoW map as loading screen, I like it. And as I understood - beta mission is first?

Yes. This is the fiest mission of the campaign. Making those lading screens is such a pain. Thanks to blizz when you upload a custom loading screen the text thats there is bugged and doesnt display in the rigt spt. It displays on the bottom left with a lot of it cutting off. So I had to make the entire screen and the text as one picture.

  • And concept of recieving something from side quests in others missions I personally support - it pushes player to do everything the map offers, preventing them from map rushing. I said before that it resembles like-Arkain feature, but remembered that first encount of those was in Starcraft 1;

Yup! and on some missions theres a choice between what to have in the final mission instead of just checking if its completed or not.

  • However, gold mines are… Messy one. Why I should increase number of fanes? When I have higher upkeep, I'll recieve maximum income from goldmine, but with high fane amount I'll quickly burn them out, so all undead nerubian style in midgame is aggressive rush?

The number of Fanes also increases the effectiveness of units' abilities, their life regeneration, and the gold income rate. Typically, a race has 5 workers harvesting from a gold mine. For balance I made the Corrupted cost food supply so it's one scale wit other races.

  • Guards with stun seems pretty good feature. They helped me alot in mission, especially in base defending: stun mortars and towers just bring down others;

They stay true to their name. Having increased armor and speed on blight (near bases usually)


  • For what I should use my townhall spell? And worker blight? I don't found any situation where I can use it. Maybe it this mission yet;

That us the races' initial defense akin to Burrows, Ancients attacking, Town Bell, and Ghouls. The spell can be used to heal your troops or a worker into a defense unit to defend your base. Blight is a big part of the race, having workers be able to spread it helps. A lot of the later units will utilize blight more. For this mission it is possible to spread blight to the final enemy base and have Guards become far more effective with their increased speed and life regen.
  • Eh, endless assault from south dwarf base and you can't bring them down. And why wolfs are training from barracks?

I like it. Adds a sense of danger. And keeps you focused on gathering the Fanes. Why not the wolves? Dwarves are known to use wolves as battle pets.
  • And I think that rifleman training time was decreased a BIT, so quickly enemy train them...

It's their base vanilla training time. I don't really know. They feel decent.
  • In final cinematic hero looks into guards, but speaks with worker. Worker doesn't face hero, instead facing guards too.

I see at as him looking to the Fanes.
 
Level 4
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My YouTube subscribers and I really liked your campaign about the Nerubes, so now I'm looking forward to this story!
 
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General:
  • I would like to start by saying that making campaigns focused on custom races is awesome and I hope you’ll continue making them. The two missions I played were quite a fun introduction to the new race(s). I realize now that this feedback ended up being quite long and a little rambly, so I hope you don’t mind too much.
  • The Undead Nerubians feel quite intuitive, and with the detailed descriptions, I never had a problem of not understanding what something does. The only thing that might be worth making a little clearer are hero abilities since they do a lot of things at the same time and the descriptions are harder to read and understand fully, at least for me.
  • I like the terrain, it has good variation and verticality.
  • Maybe you could make some of the tighter chokepoints a little wider since all the nerubian units are kinda chunky.
  • I play on Hard and so far, it seems fairly challenging. Although I personally don’t like when AI gets a flat bonus to stats to increase difficulty, but I understand it’s the quickest way to increase difficulty.
  • I was wondering if you would want to give the dwarves some custom stuff? Maybe an elite unit and replace the wolves with actual dwarf warriors. If they only appear in the first 2 missions it probably isn’t worth it, but I think it would be nice if you want to use them in future missions.
Map 1:
  • The 3 tents with a gryphon rider nearby are considered neutral, even though in the next mission all creep structures are hostile. Might be worth changing that for consistence’s sake. Especially when they drop items.
  • I wonder if it wouldn’t feel more natural if the dwarven base dropped units from airships instead of going through a gateway.
  • The rocks at the side of the long bridge near your base look quite funky if you zoom closer.
  • If the dwarven attackers destroy some of your buildings and try to retreat to their base, they will get stuck at the bonus objective location. It’s quite unlikely that this will happen but if it does, it breaks the balance of the mission significantly.
Map 2:
  • I love that your ally gets upgrades with you
  • Transitions in the initial cutscene might be a bit too quick, I could barely read the dialogue.
  • Some allied units can get stuck in the dwarf base after you destroy it.
  • Sidequest doesn’t make much sense to me in the context of the mission. Specifically, why would going to a circle of power be necessary for the acolyte to save the undead forces? Some quick explanation would be nice because to me it felt like it was there for the sake of having a side-quest and not because it’s connected to the mission.
  • Are the small bases spawning units? It would be nice if they were, so there is value in moving out early. I generally feel it would be nice to have something that forces you to go outside your base early because then you have to decide if you want to invest in more units or build more Fanes and get upgrades. Now I feel like I can sit in my base, build 10 Fanes, wait for upgrades, and then move out.
  • The creeps might be too weak, you have access to a lot of stuns and disabling abilities, and they make the encounters quite trivial.
  • Furbolg lines trigger even when there are no units near them. It happens to the northwest camp first and then to the one north of your base.
  • I wonder if you could move the Fountain of Health to a more convenient position (closer to the middle), right now it’s difficult to make use of it.
Text:
  • There was some dialog that felt a little clunky, but English ain’t my first language so I can’t help you there.
  • Zag W ability: Impact the ground, stunning for 2 seconds, dealing 75, and slowing nearby enemy land units by 30%.
  • Zag E ability: Activate to send a surge to the Underlord's carapace, increasing movement speed by 30% and returning 40% melee damage back at attackers.
Units:

Zag:

  • He is a strength hero but starts with more agility than strength, is that intentional?
  • Feels quite strong and is fun to use.
Isri:
  • I didn’t find much use for the W ability, but that might be my fault
  • It would be nice to have a stronger visual indication of his Q and W abilities since it’s hard to identify which units are already affected.
Apostate:
  • Surprisingly useful for support, I take 3 with my army to spread Blight and repair the arbalests.
Guard:
  • Probably the most interesting tier 1 unit I’ve seen in Warcraft. They feel quite weak when attacking – they get stuck on each other, are slow and still die very quickly. But they are great for defense, especially in the early game. They remind me of Roaches from SC2 as a supply inefficient unit meant for early-game defense.
Striker:
  • Solid well-rounded unit, very good in mass. There's not much more to say.
Shadow Weaver:
  • They have weird targeting on their heal auto-cast. It targets units in combat, but it doesn’t prioritize damaged units. It really reduces the effectiveness of the healing in big fights, when you don’t have time to micro them. Maybe instead of an instant heal on blight, they should apply an additional passive bonus. Also, they can target mechanical units with this ability which might not be intended.
  • The dispel is difficult to use because I can’t see and distinguish ability effects on units. And for the blight spread, I use workers anyway.
  • At least in the second mission they felt very weak and not worth using.
Arbalest:
  • Decent siege unit, AI doesn’t seem to prioritize killing it, unlike other siege units. The Necrotic Pulse ability didn’t feel very useful, most of the time the defenders fight outside the vicinity of their buildings.

If you need someone for testing, I do find myself with far too much time lately. And I’d be happy to help with anything you need.
 
Level 24
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Awesome. Thanks for your review and notes. Very informative. I already made a lot of changes from these two maps but always needs improvements.

The Dwarves don't have a presence in the rest of the campaign. They don't really need much else.

Balancing the difficulty is a challenge for me. As the mapmaker and race maker I know to use them to their fullest so even the hard ends up trivial. I try to add other things along with the player damage. I would also make it so the AI would be harder on higher difficulty but without a proper blizzard campaign editor I can't easily make the AI do what I want without having to make 3 AIs per enemy which will make it hella bloated.

I have finished 4 other missions at this point that I need some feedback on. The progress has been steady but slowed down to working on other projects and Elden Ring release.

If you'd like to test them you we can do so through discord to make it easier.
 
Level 26
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Somehow I have a crash on the second map. When the enemy base is attacked (Green), my game is crashing all the time. I even set back the resolution and graphics, and still happening somehow. I don't know what's the problem.
 
Level 24
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Feb 19, 2011
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656
Somehow I have a crash on the second map. When the enemy base is attacked (Green), my game is crashing all the time. I even set back the resolution and graphics, and still happening somehow. I don't know what's the problem.
Oh man. I don't think it's the graphics. I'm trying to find the error here. I had it crash on me before but I thought it was fixed. Were you playing on Hard?
 
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