New Campaign! Warcraft III: Before the Chaos MOD

Crusaders aren't paladins, or at least as far as I know. Now, I'm not saying that Aedelas exactly fits the bill for the Crusader either, but if you have a better suggestion for the human hero type he should be, tell me. I don't want to create another hero mold, because 6 heroes starts to get a little crazy.

Martin

Here's a pick of the ranger skin, although it has some of my other skins as well. Don't worry about that Medivh edit - I am not planning on turning him into this in the mod. Repeat, that will not be Medivh (I just don't want to be flamed for this) ://// . That was from an older project. Tell me what you guys think,

Martin

Very impressive, and professionally planned and designed. I'm sceptical at the sheer ambitious nature of the project (Like you said)- I'd definitely consider splitting it up if I were producing it and doing them in segments.
You seem to be on a designing roll, so I also suggest you note down and plan all your ideas in some text files.

Maybe we could all team up on this - by 'we' I mean myself and Rommel, who are making a WC1 conversion (Link). We're thinking of doing a WC2 one afterwards (Which shouldn't take as long as the WC1 one). Perhaps we could work on some of your ideas (I definitely want to do a Lord of the Clans adaption someday), if you wish. Something to discuss.
PM or mail ([email protected]) me if so.

BTW- about Medivh's fall from grace to darkness : this is explained in the Bizzard novel The Last Guardian. (I've yet to read it, but someone on the SA forum explained the events, like how Khadgar, Lothar and Garona confronted Medivh)

Two words: Mental power.
Medivh was in contact with Gul'dan before his death and, I presume, his essence lived on through the Twisting Nether. He saw the future and made his way back to Azeroth, and set about events to save mankind.
Why doesn't he use his god-like powers? I thought it was obvious in his speech at the end. He didn't need to.
The 'moral' of the story is that fhe fate of the world isn't in the hands of super-hero-type guardians, but is in the hands of men and the people themselves.

Oh. Re-reading your quote, perhaps you knew this (You seem to have a great understanding of the WC universe - even knowing that Doomhammer was a hermit in a hut, as seen in one LOTC screenshot). Bleh. Mines a good explanation for anyone wondering anyhow.

:)

I think Arthas should be in it, but maybe as a paladin novice?
You can explain the relation between Jaina and him or something.

I can help if you'd like, cant do too much until next week when I get a lot of free time but Id love to help. Im a bit of everything, I can trigger, Skin, Model, Im ok with cinematics but others are better, as for animating new models from scratch, I know how (thanx to the usefull tutorials here) but I havnt had too much practice with that yet. Lemme know if you need me or anything. All my contat info is in my profile.

I'd like to help with the cinematics...I can do character personality myself, just give me a basic text and I'll make it more pleasurable, I'll soon have a cinematic I can show you, maybe you will like it.

It's always nice to have someone else who shares my thought, Kattana! I thought metamorhposis should be changed for the demon hunter not only because of the plot, but because it doesn't make sense for a normal demon hunter to turn into one in the first place! Anyone have any ideas for what it should be? I was being an idiot, and screwed around making a funny "Panderan Edge" ability, where it's a huntress weapon that he chucks and it bounces about 50 times around enemy units. Of course this won't be it. Also, I was thinking that we should replace the ranger's ability to multiple shot. It makes her shoot her normal attack super fast for a certain amount of time. This could easily be programmed by having her metamorphosize for a short amount of time into a unit looking exactly like her that has an insane attack speed, and then when it runs out, she turns back. I think this would be better than the water elemental spell. I also have questions as to Neutral heroes - do we want these to be in the game? There's so many new spells from TFT that we could create our own, and spread these spells around. Well, I got to head out real quick, but I'll be back; I have tons of things to address,

Martin

Yes, there are several changes to it. First, the tattooes on her face and body have been changed, her hair has been changed as well. She is also has the human ranger face. Her armor, runes and jewelry has been changed. The bow ornaments were added. Also, you can't tell in this photo because I did not alpha the cloak, but the cloak is now made up of leaves (I thought it would be cooler for hear to have camo. The leaves change color with team color.

Martin

Magic from star alliance has agreed to host us and give us our own forum! This is very good, because this post is becoming huge with the amount of replies. I am really excited at the amount of attention people are willing to give this project. Not to mention that, but my web site that I have right now sucks, and so it's nice to have some place to go. I'll still continue working on the website, as it will provide contact info, project planning and info, maybe a small dinky forum that won't be used as the main, and recent news. Our downloads/releases will also be on there as well. Magic and his bud have also expressed interest to work on this project, and I have no objections. Maverick2000, one bad anus skinner, from Broken Edge might be joining us for skinning and modelling as well. Anyway, I think that the SA hosting will be great for our project, and hopefully we will develop even better teams/commitees that can try to organize the enormous amount of talent that we have here. Also, SA has some awesome sound editing and voice acting stuff that would be imperative for our project. I don't know how soon the forum will be up, but rest assured, I will let you know when this is accomplished. Thanks Magic!

Martin

Just trying to clarify whose in this project and what sections that they are trying to fulfill:

me - Planner, Storyline, Mapper
mmot - Skinner
KaTTaNa - Adv. Spell Editing and JASS scripter
Uriel Septim - Mapper
? Zuljean - Student in learning
DoubleHex - Storyline and plot
Siphon - Modeling, Animating and Skinning
ChickenFight - Cinematics
? Maverick 2000 - Skinner, Model Editor
Magic - Storyline and Plot, Sound stuff?
- Any people that Magic can hook us up with

If I forgot someone, I'm an idiot, and please forgive me. If I was wrong about what you are working on, please flame me or reply to this message. If you would like to change what you are doing, please post as well. I just want to make sure that I know what everyone's trying to do (have a little order to the madness). Based off what I can see, we need some modellers and spell editors. I'm not bad at spell editing and can do some myself, but I don't want to take away anyone's dream job. There's just a ton of work that needs to be done, and there's more than enough to be passed around. We all need help in doing our different positions, so let's not be posessive. So please, PM eachother who are in your fields and work with each other.

First, and foremost, spell-editing and abilities need to be taken care of so that we can balance. Balancing is of course going to be difficult until we get the abilities from TFT to include as well, but let's do what we can. KaTTaNa has done a great job with the Grim Ward, and I'm sure will do some great work. I've got the Lightning Bolt, Dragon Mantra and some others complete (non-Jass spells), and others like Time Stop have already been done.

Spells that have not been complete and their difficulty levels:
- Seal of Courage - Divine shield that can be cast on any unit (medium, I think this might require Jass)
- Force of Nature - Arch Druid metamorphosis (easy, no Jass)
- Create Gold Mine - Mountain King burrows into earth and constructs a gold mine for a period of time (not quite sure if this is Jass or not; he might just be able to build one. Anyway, medium)
- Multiple Shot - Ranger shoots arrows super-fast for a certain period of time (using a metamorphosis like ability should be easy, no Jass)
- Onslaught - Personal roar for a hero, multiplies attack by three (easy, no Jass)
- Frenzy - casts advanced bloodlust on all units of AoE (medium-hard, Jass)
- Exorcism (perhaps change the name to Sermon to show why it would help own units) - Channeling spell that heals your own units and punishes the undead or hurts other non-human enemies (instantly kills a unit that's been posessed by a banshee?) (hard, Jass)
- Voodoo - Iron Maiden for the Shadow Hunter. Damage inflicted upon him by cursed unit/s is amplified. (hard, jass)
- Chain Laso - Abomination ties chain around enemy, grabbing him and bringing him instantly next to the Abomination. (AoE for upgrades?) - Effective against ranged units. (Hard, jass)
- Null Ward - ward that silences allies and enemies in AoE (medium-hard, jass)
- Evil Eye - moveable sentry wards (easy, no jass)
- Call Storm - channeling spell like star fall, but stuns units too. (easy, jass)
- Disarray - mass confusion among enemy troops causing them all to suffer from clumsiness and miss most of their attacks (medium, jass)
- Spore Cloud - AoE spell that enemy can't see, but you can (very hard I think, definately jass)
- Beta Tranquility - no units can attack in area for 30 seconds. Channeling spell, so keeper of the grove must stay. (medium, jass)
- Black Arrow - slowly reduces inflicted unit to 10% of life, and stuns him at that point (hard, jass)

If any of you guys would like to take over any of these spells, it would be appreciated. This is the integral part of the game as the spells and balancing will form most of the strategies. There will need to be a lot of balancing done as well to make sure no heroes are too powerful. All of work is for naught unless we get these taken care of.

The last thing regarding spells is what do you think of them? Do you think that they suck? Should they be changed? I have some quick comments on some spell changes that I think should take place:

1. Ranger's Water Elemental changed to Rapid Fire/Shot. This never really fitted here in the first place, but where do you think this should go? I was thinking of giving the water elemental to the sorceresses in the beta (and nerfing the elementals), giving it to the Arch Druid instead of Nature's Blessing - change it to swamp thing, wind elemental or something.
2. Ranger's Lightning Arrow changed to Swiftness Aura. I think it would be nice to have differently abilities versus a lot of arrow shots with autocasts. This aura would simply increase movement speed of units.
3. Dread Lord's Vampirism changed to Vampiric Aura. I don't know how I got rid of this in the first place; this never should have been done. Dark Conversion can then go to the Necromancer which still makes sense.
4. Necromancer's Unholy Frenzy changed to Dark Conversion. The Unholy Frenzy would go to a new undead spellcaster that we have to replace with the old necromancer anyway.
5. Necromancer's Raise dead becomes revamped. On level 1, he simply raises 2 skeletons. On level 2, they gain added armor and attack. On level 3, if a raised skeleton dies, it keeps spawning another until the Necromancer is killed. Cool, no?
6. Ancient of Wrath's Fissure becomes revamped. It now fits in perfectly with the new TFT CL impale. Tossing units up and stunning them works better for this spell. Of course, this does eliminate one of the AoW's spells, and requires him to get another.
7. Should the Lich have Dragon Mantra, which summons flying dragons as an ultimate? Or should we change it to something else.

Those were just some spell concerns and changes that I had. Incorporated with these new spells and abilities, we also need to develop new units to take the roles that some of the new heroes originally had (i.e. abomination and necromancer). Also, Taurens are gone, as well as the TC and the TFT Spirit Walker. We will have to develop new units for those. If any one has ideas for these, these will be equally important, and I would love some posts for this.

Models, skins, and so forth should come next. We can still balance the spells regardless of what model they're using. Then we should try to do some sound work (this isn't crucial, but will be fun). I think we could all have some fun pitching in sounds or lines that should be incorporated for the characters, just like how Blizzard did.

Then we should try to construct and release some multiplayer maps; after we do this, we should make our first release, and let people have a go, and give some comments. Then we can do some more rebalancing. It'll hard to be unbiased against the heroes that we love.

Then we can start the campaigns, preferibly in chronological order. Does this seem like a natural progression of events? Please fill me in here,

Martin

regarding Chicken Fight's comment:


I think that this is a good point, and would seek to bring further and better character development. It might also further bring out the irony in which Arthas was the one to fall. I think we should include this to some point. However, this isn't the main issue at hand, but we can fiddle with it if you want.

Martin

Yeah, The Arthas thing should be fun :D

GREAT WORK KaTTaNa! Again, I impressed by your jassing (that sounds kind dirty; I don't know why). Regarding corpse explosion, I would make the spell explosion radius a bit bigger, and is it possible to add a sound effect to this one? And is it possible to select the skeletons that had the most HP? Regarding Black Arrow, I am surprised at how versatile you were able to make the spell; I surely thought you would have to disable a spell of some kind. Good job! I do want to make a slight change to it, though (I promise it won't make your work in vain). I agree that it shouldn't be able to be used on buildings, but as it's the ranger's ultimate, I would like to make it usuable on heroes. Perhaps the health percentage remaining should be changed to somewhere within 25-50%? I just think it would be a waste to use an Ultimate on one unit like a tauren, when other ultimates are better. This may be difficult to balance, but I'm sure we can do it. As to your Beta Tranquility idea - your idea sounds perfect, I don't know if I would have thought of using the endurance aura with it! impressive! I will talk to you again in a bit, as I have to go! Thanks for the good work!

You in need of a tester somewhat in the future?

You're welcome, MP.
There'll be no work on voices, however, until a significant portion of the project is done. That's the only major point I want to make about SAVAGE. I've, personally, done a lot of hard voice acting work on projects that were lazily cancelled.

I strongly suggest you pool and sort out all of your ideas and put together a design document that details all about the campaigns. See my WC1 design doc, but split it up for each of the campaigns you have ideas for. 8)