WarCraft I Campaign

Silly me I thought you said scorpion:D

Indeed, maybe I could make a new skin for the daemon, by removing the armor of the Doomguard and the idea of the zergling isn't so bad either. However, I already made up my mind for the Forest Spider and Swamp Spider. They really look different and I kind of like it this way :). Just like the Rain of Fire has moved to the Warlock and the Blizzard is now the Conjurer spell.
There is however one thing that bothers me quite a lot. For the Cleric and mage I just used the Emissary model with new skins, I think they look quite nice and I'm happy with them, but I'm not happy with the Warlock, he looks too strong. Now I tried to make the Necrolyte with the model used for the Acolyte. I don't like the result, it's not euh... Orcish.
There aren't any other orc units in the game I could use, so any ideas are welcome.

perhaps you should edit the alcolyte model to have more muscle mass and a more orcish frame. All you'd have to do is move some verts around, it shouldn't take long for anyone that knows how to do this.

to make the necrolyte or the warlock?

I think it was for the warlock, but im not sure. I would think the necrolyte would be a better choice for it, but its not my decision to make.

It is as well for the Necrolyte as for the Warlock.
The warlock and Necrolyte look pretty much the same in WarCraft I. The Necrolyte is black and the Warlock is red.
The Acolyte however doesn't have a cast spell animation and I'm also not sure on how to alter it's skin to make it look perfect.
This might be a little problem, but I'm determined to solve this.
If anyone has a good idead or a great model :), it would be very welcome.

I know I haven't really posted enough on this board to have much draw, but I thought I'd offer my thoughts on this anyway. For one, I think it'd be great to revive Warcraft I for all those people who can't get it now because it's now abandonware (ie not for sale at www.blizzard.com). I really think that younger fans who didn't really jump on the bandwagon until Starcraft will be interested in seeing what the first Warcraft was all about. Doing as near as precise a conversion as possible is a good step in this direction. However, there are some problems that sticking to the gameplay of the original entails:

1. Imbalance. What could I mean by this? Aren't the races almost exactly the same? Well, yes. However, for those of us who ever tried to play multiplayer (I did once), the game essentially boils down to who can get Conjurers/Warlocks first. This is because Water Elementals/Demons trump just about everything else in the game. Seriously, four of them will smash through just about any opposition except for their counterpart. The only thing that can stop them aside from more Elementals/Demons is Archers/Spearmen, which were quite powerful in Warcraft I (and thus explains why they were really bad in Warcraft II). Footmen and Grunts are, as they were in War2, obsolete once Knights/Wolf Riders arrive. Granted, this doesn't ruin the game, but being back in the stage where the races are almost the exact same is kinda jarring. As for altering around some of the spells that aren't available this time around (Exorcism, Unholy Armor), I think that can all be balanced so that Raise Dead doesn't overwhelm Heal, or vice versa. Anyway, the point is that adapting Warcraft I as closely as possible entails bringing the old problems with it.

2. Repitition. If I recall, most of the missions in Warcraft I were pretty much the same, with the exception of the dungeon missions. Build a base, attack the other guy, destroy the other base. Simple as that. In Warcraft I these missions were challenging for several reasons. One of them was a limitation in regards to control. You could only command four troops at a time, and there were no control groups. In other words, macromanagement was very difficult, if such a thing can be believed. Also keep in mind that there were no such things as base defenses. That means no towers to fall back on. This means that winning each mission is as simple as massing together as many guys as possible, letting your enemy whittle away their forces in small, ineffective attacks, and then counterattacking when you have enough guys. It's as simple as that. With the ability to control so many troops with so much ease, the difficultly of the missions will decrease greatly, and the campaign will simply be a well-repeated build order. I point this out only to remind you that keeping faith to the gameplay of the original will be difficult, considering this. Disabling control groups and maybe limiting unit selection could help (The latter I'm not sure could be done in any practical way), but this would also be annoying. I don't know what to do.

3. Old gameplay conventions. Believe it or not, Blizzard used Warcraft I as a base when making Warcraft II better, just as Warcraft II was improved on by Starcraft and Starcraft was improved on by Warcraft III. The reason that worker units have been given their pathetic attacks is because it was really annoying when they couldn't in Warcraft I, meaning that even if you had a lot of them they couldn't stop that one badly injured Grunt from killing them all, even though they have axes. Also, the ranged units were too powerful, and clerics and necrolytes got torn up easily. So in Warcraft II peasants/peons could attack and Heal was given to the Paladins. Warcraft II had it's own problems. The races being similar was annoying. Bloodlust was too powerful. The two tier 1 units were near worthless and became obsolete very quickly. So Starcraft improved up on this by creating three very different races with their own strenghts/weaknesses, and making sure that every unit would be useful throughout an entire game. And it worked. Marines, Zealots, and Zerglings were just as well used early on as they were in long games which used lots of tech. The problem with Starcraft was that it was dominated by macromanagement, and using spellcasters and micromanaging was tedious, hard to pull, and often ineffectual given the scale of the battles. Warcraft III decreased the size of battles, made spellcasters easier to use, and made micro more important. True, it's not entirely balanced yet, but then again neither was Starcraft when it was first released. The point I'm trying to make is that these innovations are good things. And after we've experienced them, going back to the basics is kinda hard. Oh, and peasants not having an attack is annoying, I'm sure Blizzard would have given it to them had they thought of it at the time. So, in this case, giving the players some of the comodities they've been adapted to would be very useful.

Between these three problems, I'd personally like to see a retelling of Warcraft I in Warcraft III form. Include heroes, creeps, some varied stats, dialogue, different objectives from mission to mission, etc... I think this would ultimately be more fun that a rote remake of the original, which would be interesting out of historical curiousity, but not nearly the same experience as playing the game back in 1994, when the game was new and innovative, not like 2002, where the model it began with has been heavily modified and improved upon.

Be that as it may, that's just me. And given the ease of a truthful remake, at least in terms of mapping, I think you should go ahead with it. But sometime in the future it might be nice to see another version as well.

-Weremuppet

Well, that surely is a POST :D
But I really can do something with it. At first, I also considered making the maps as much as the original, but with different terrain heights, a few subquests and some heroes, like Lothar, Garona, King Llane, Medivh, Blackhand and maybe some others.
Some of these were already in the game, but didn't have any role of importance. This ofcourse could be changed.
As for adding creeps, this will probably be replaced by small groups of enemy forces.
Now to follow the post before mine:

1. The Water Elemental and Daemon are again very strong, this time however there is a difference in attacks. The Spearman and Spear Thrower (Archer) do piercing attacks, so that means extra damage to large armour, the Daemon (D) and water Elemental (WE) can be brought down with 3 knights, if you use knights and spear throwers, you can take them down even faster. Summoning a D or WE again takes all mana the unit has, but it takes a lot more time to regain full mana again, so you can't summon a WE or D, let it attack and die and almost immediately summon it again.
it also costs you a lot of gold before you can summon a WE or D.
The upgrades now al have to be done before you're even able to summon them. Indeed, you can say footman are obsolete when knights arive, but this may work against you. knights (K) cost you more than a footman (F) and a Spear Thrower (ST) and they can take down a knight, because a knight has large armour and takes much more damage from a ST than a Footman. The units in W1 were much weaker and a Knight could kill a footman with a few hits (I believe 3 or so), that is also a little changed, units are weaker, but not with as much difference as in W1.
This however is balancing and I will make sure you can't win the game by just building a single unit.

2. I think I already discussed this issue. Again there will be no towers, but then again I'm not sure, because a base defended with towers proves a much more challenge than a base without towers. The controls however will be the same as in WarCraft III, i'm not giving up the perfect way to control your army, I don't mean to get you back to the old days, just giving you the possibility to replay the story.

3. The peons and Peasants indeed, no longer have the attack ability, this is also something I'm considering to change.
Spells and abilities are now more balanced, healing for example can now be automatically done and doesn't need to be done by the user.

I'm considering everything and when the modifications are done, I really would like people to test it in multiplayer games. This ofcourse can not be done, playing on battle.net so it must be done on a lan. I think I balanced it pretty good, but I could really use some beta testers.
Thanks for your comment Weremuppet.

Why can't the testing be done over bnet?

Care.

Because I think, battle.net will detect a wrong MPQ version and it might cause connection or desync problems.
Maybe this will not occur when two players are using the exact same mpq file. This should be tested.
Remember it is a MOD, not just maps, but you really have to replace the War3Patch.mpq file, so installing 2 versions of WarCraft III might be useful.

Ok then. But what exactly are you modifying? Why is it even necessary to use the MPQ?

Sorry if this sounds nosy, but there is usually little reason why changes can't be made solely to the map.

Care.

Sure, you can ask.
I've done this for the following reasons:

1. The map editor also reads this mpq file, so you can make your own maps using the WarCraft I MOD.

2. I added a lot of new buttons and all upgrade descriptions have changed.

3. New models and skins are now all in the new MPQ file.

4. New upgrades have been added, like the "improved horse breeding upgrade".

When all modifications are added, it makes the mpq file about three megabytes larger, if I should import all the modifications in every single map, all these maps would become about three megabytes themselves. WarCraft I had about 12 levels for each race, this would make the mod, 2*12*3 = 72 MB
Put the upgrades and models in the mpq file and each map will stay pretty small, about 300 KB. This makes the MOD about 10 MB.
Does this explain your question??

hey i edited the acolyte model to look more "orcish" i dunno if it looks good.. he does look stronger and today is the second day ive had milkshape

heres a pic comparing them

maybe an alternative would be his mining/ repair ani or just make a special effect on him when he casts

If I understand correctly, the bottom one is the modified Acolyte
and the one at the top is the original?
Pretty hard to see what it looks like now.
I'm also busy editing models, the Spear Thrower is likely to get replaced by the Archer (yes he's back 8) )
The model of the Orc spearman is already modified. (smaller fangs)
I got one little problem left. I edit the models in 3D Studio Max. I can import a mdx file with the max script, but how do I make mdx models of it again, with all the animations the model uses.
As soon as I find out how to make entirely new models, I'm thinking about creting the WarCraft I Human Church, Human Tower, Human Stables, Orc Temple, Orc Tower and the Orc Kennels. This ofcourse will take a lot of extra time, but the MOD will be perfect after that.
Let me know what you think of it.