The Complete Heart of Storms Compendium!

//WIP//
~HEART OF STORMS~




There should be no confusion: Heart of Storms (hereafter 'HoS') is simply one of the biggest, greatest, most ambitious & (paradoxically) most long-lasting Total Conversion/Mod ever designed for Warcraft 3 Modding. Pioneered, designed, bolstered, sustained, and ultimately interred by the one and only Dmitry Rommel, HoS has stood as a massive legacy to the great reaches to which Wc3 Modding can be taken, as well as a testament to the strength of will of it's creator in it's long life-cycle.

Take it from me; this thing was big. This thing is what little mods wanted to be when they grew up. Found mainly on Samods (with extensive Forums), but also on such far-flung wastelands as ModdDB, an older Samods here (check 'dat Unit Gallery! Schweet), and even a few topics on good ol' Wc3C, HoS was a titan of modding; a slumbering giant, perhaps (given it's (in)frequency of updates), but a beast nonetheless.

I'll take it now from Rommel himself as to what they hoped to accomplish:
So there you have it: 4 new factions (Ironforge Alliance, Shadow Elves, Orcish Horde, Quel'Thalas) with additional subfactions (Stygians, etc), entirely custom artwork, fully-voiced & realized campaigns, new tactics, new balance, new Neutrals, a complex & interwoven plot-line... This thing had it all!

And perhaps, that is a major contributor to it's ultimate demise. Like every massive project to-date, HoS suffered from "too much" and "too few"; 'too much' to be made by 'too few' people. While Rommel (as a designer & artist) could contribute in several potent ways (and did), he was ultimately unable to keep the steam going alone.

That is, perhaps... The greatest disappointment of all. For HoS to die; the longest-lived & most prolific & potentially-successful total-conversion/mod, meant a certain amount of hope died with it. For all those modders who have great dreams, HoS was a sign that "Wc3 Modding still lives & a total-conversion can make it". Now... Things are just slightly darker for the lack thereof. Just my opinion.

HOWEVER! After many months year(s) of deliberation, Rommel decided to open up his works to the public, that others might benefit! I, Kyrbi0, had the incredible fortune to be in contact with some associates of his, and so found myself in the position to discuss with Rommel the eventual "first release" of HoS upon the once-illustrious Wc3C.

Thus! From my own years of study, research & archiving, along with the good graces of Dmitry Rommel, I am providing for download several HoS-related things:

• A massive "Forums Archive" series of documents
• A sprawling bevy of Promotional Pictures
• Closed Beta Reports
• A plethoric collection of Unfinished/Unfinalized Models
• A variety of compiled MPQs at various stages
• Probably loads more!

MOREOVER! In the time it took for me to begin organizing the left-over files, it was discovered that many of the resources were incomplete. Thus Rommel got in contact with Sellenisko (primarily of the Hive), who has been graciously & diligently working over the past few months, attending to this matter. Thus I present to you not only a bevy of fully-finalized HoS Models, but a variety of completed, never-before-seen resources for HoS that were un-realized due to lack of time!

• Custom Icons (almost 400!)
• Music Soundtracks (20, by funkmaister)
• Unit Soundsets (around 20)
• Promotional Pictures (several)
• Unit Models (over 100)
• Building Models (over 20)

~~~Permission~~~

//PERSIMMONS

~~~Ingame Screenshots~~~

//SCRAWNSHEETS

~~~

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I'll admit, I did a bit of 'soap-boxing'... But let's just say I've been looking forward to this day, this post, and this occasion for quite some time. However, this is not only a proud day for me, but an exciting (yet sobering) one for the entirety of Wc3 Modding. I am undeniably grateful for what small part I had to play in it.

Enjoy!

//WIP//

Reserved second post.

I was preparing this in the Pastebin, but was having some trouble attaching things without it timing out... And this place is slow enough anyway. :P I got all the stuff, I just have to re-zip it.

Good luck with this dude, I hope this gets completed, such a waste to just die.

Psh, total conversions as ambitious in different ways got made by teams as small.

Once you actually upload stuff and link it to the post, I'm sure we can see this approved. I've already had a little peek through the raw packs Rommel posted and there is some sublime stuff in there, so the finalised stuff should be the icing on a very delicious cake.

Unlikely to see much use these days considering the remainder of the community's obsession with HDGRAPHIX, but lovely stuff nonetheless.

Oh dont't worry, I wont't it will. :P I've got all the stuff on my computer; just have to find the best way to wrap it all up. Stupid site restrictions...

Schweet. Unfortunately the "in-game screenshots" bit will take me a bit since I don't have any made already (hopefully it'll insert easily into an MPQ like I did for OH). But yeah! Some pretty interesting stuff, and the "finished" stuff is pretty cool.

Silly RDZ; "total conversions" only count if they make a game like Warcraft!

Wouldn't be total then, would it?

Lol.

I guess in my mind, while I realize "total conversion" means literally "converting it totally" (including to an entirely different game-type, i.e. AoS or whatever-yours-is (INSENSITIVITY AHOY!)), I generally think of "total conversions" as specifically mods that essentially 'recreate' Warcraft 3; i.e. 4 replacement races, new abilities, new assets, new campaigns, etc (of which HoS, HoS, and GTW were all of that which were preposition etc).

Oi, tell that to the Rexxar campaign and that AoS mission with Illidan and and and and...

Yeah, I'd much rather have a Great Troll War pack to be honest. Especially the scripts -- they were doing some truly revolutionary stuff with dynamic accuracy and all that. Shame they never amounted to anything.

Ah well, enough off-topicery. Get your uploads in gear, son, we're waiting.

Ok, running into an issue... Serious question, how large of a file can we upload to a given post? I don't want to just sit here & "trial-and-error" my way to the right (small enough) size...

//EDIT// - Got a warning about "5.00 MB for this file type", so I'm going with that... Criminy. This is gonna take a while.

Use a file-hosting service, or perhaps the Hive's pastebin. Mega is a pretty good option, though I don't know if there's a size limit there.

I didn't know if that was allowed... But I did end up using Dropbox for a few of them (as you can see in the updated first post). Not done yet but got much of the "new" stuff in.

I don't know if it's allowed, but I know many people use the Hive's pastebin for all kind of things. I guess I'll ask Ralle what he thinks about it.

There are ways to get larger files hosted by wc3c, I'll ask our technical director about how to get this done.

It's best to keep a mirror somewhere though, in case of another database crash or an equivalent.

Oh, like we'd have another one of those. :P