Articles - Campaign Creations History - Page 3
This is a run down interview-style overview of the famous thread known as "Somebody can tell me About CC. History?" In this thread, a simple forumer questioned the history of Campaign Creations, where many veteran forumers joined in on detailing the history. You can read each page seperately starting with the first below:
| Magic | ||||||||||||||
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| Legion | ||||||||||||||
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| DrumsofWar | ||||||||||||||
| One.
m0g got famous by his pathetic wit, Newrand Citadel, and pretending he
was me. Bnet Experience was after about two years tenure at CC. Two. Adun got famous just because he's Adun. He's like Michael Jackson. Just as sexually neutral. Three. CC went fucking downhill the second I joined. I mean, damn, I have maybe twenty thousand posts here in total, and that's more than the staffers on all the forums combined. |
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| RobDDav | ||||||||||||||
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| DrumsofWar | ||||||||||||||
| I've
been here long enough to remember the days when Magic, TPC, and Palin
all actually spammed instead of making intelligent posts. Damn, I feel old. |
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| Shelf of Justice | ||||||||||||||
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| DrumsofWar | ||||||||||||||
| That
was the same problem in the SC community. It took two years to bring
forth Desler, RCX, you, Oracle, Joel and all the other lumaries. It took the spark of Antioch, and right now, either no one's daring to make a large spark or the flintstones being grinded just suck ass. |
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| AA7Dragoon | ||||||||||||||
| Perhaps
it all has to do with the generation of gamers. When StarCraft came out
years ago, it was our generation which was producing and going further
in making the best custom abilities and campaigns possible. As we got
older, real life began to take its toll with college, work, etc. And
the new generation which has replaced us and is suppose to be producing
great things with WarCraft aren't doing anything. I really believe our
generation was the true gamers. Now we have these kids whos first games
were Pokémon while we were playing Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star,
dreaming of greater things to come. Blame the tweens. |
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| SigmaMagnus | ||||||||||||||
| No, silly, I am 13 and my first game ever was Warcraft (meaning Warcraft 1.) Also, people should first make campaigns, and then make the mods. Modding is stupid if there is no story. That is why Final Fantasies 1-7 were better than all of the ones after. I would much rather play FF5 than FF 10, 9, or 8. | ||||||||||||||
| Legion | ||||||||||||||
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| Tipereth | ||||||||||||||
| I (as Tipereth) came into existance about two or three years ago, right around the time that CI was at it's peak. Most of the forum people wont remember me, but thats because they were forum people, I posted on the news threads until TPC shut them down. I was silent (at CC) for about a year, and returned to post when RoC came out. I've been doing a whole lot of nothing work on my campaign, and the only thing I've done for the community was maybe partially inspiring KoS. | ||||||||||||||
| PYRoMaNiaC | ||||||||||||||
| Special thanks to Adun for keeping it all these years. And now for an explanation: Each one of the flames was a phrase that was popular at CC the time of this sig's creation. I believe it was right before Gallantry was to be announced, and the main page was changed to show the gallantry instead of the classic layout. Top right: Kinky. Patented by: Lucainan First used: I think he used it in the Magic's Ass thread the first time. Backstory: Lucainan was into cats. That is all. Top/mid left: Righty-roo. Patented by: Desler First used: I forget which thread it was, but it was a huge one. It was something to do with the Gallantry I'm pretty sure. Backstory: It was Desler's way of saying "okay" or "alright" but with a special homosexual flare that spiced up the forums. Mid-left: 8)! Patented by: Adun! First used: In all of Adun's posts! Backstory: 8)! evolved into 8D! and several other knockoffs. Everyone wanted a piece of Adun's individuality, so they started copying him. My knockoff was B)! It's awesome, and you know it. Mid-bottom left: Sexy fish! Patented by: Lucainan (later stolen by JasonienXXI! ^_^) First used: Lucainan first used it when the Gallantry layout went up on the front page and he said that the ship looked like a fish. But a sexy fish. Backstory: Lucainan recorded a hilarious song with random notes on the keyboard being mashed and him singing in falcetto. It was quite hilarious. Jasonien also claimed that he made it up. Which is a dirty lie! Bottom middle: Fecking Hell! Patented by: Magic First used: Magic posted a picture of some British TV show and a guy named Father John (or someone on the show) getting struck by lightning, and the caption was "FECKING HELL!" Backstory: Magic webcammed his ass and posted it. That has no relevance, but just so you know, it happened. Middle: All Your Base Patented by: Zerowing First used: Zerowing, the poorly translated Japanese game, was just being discovered and overused by net kiddies around the world. This was when it was popular. Backstory: Move Zig. |
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| Gemini_Kilik | ||||||||||||||
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| SigmaMagnus | ||||||||||||||
| Make that your signature. Now whore. Reminds me of the "Good Old Days" | ||||||||||||||
| AdmiralQuezacotl | ||||||||||||||
| I joined during the time of the forum before this one, right before Desler left, so I really don't know much about the distant history. Sorry. | ||||||||||||||
| SigmaMagnus | ||||||||||||||
| OMG, I am older than AQ. | ||||||||||||||
| AA7Dragoon | ||||||||||||||
| That was such a big sig Pyro, how ever were you allowed to keep it on? heh | ||||||||||||||
| deathsythe7 | ||||||||||||||
| I don't remember it being that big. Also notice the newest registered user is desler... |
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| Deveron | ||||||||||||||
| It's "Desler." With a period. Impersonations, anyone? |
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| Legion | ||||||||||||||
| By the way, I really miss those guys.. Lucainan, Codebreaker, TheOracle, Desler, Ruaquick1... And I think AA7 is right. The current generation is one of kids who played Pokemon as their first game, the forum's full of newbies. But maybe it's not for us to judge. Maybe it's not the newbies that should go, but us. | ||||||||||||||
| JoelS | ||||||||||||||
| I
just wanted to chime in and point out that there is at least one
largescale, mod-filled, huge new campaign for WC3 nearing its
completion, and that's Return of The Dragon, by Darkeagle (Darky) over
at WC3C. He also has a previous completed campaign under his belt, but
I haven't played it. I have however played some of ROTD in beta, and
found the maps pretty impressive. The scale of the project alone is prasieworthy. Darky has lined up a ton of very talented contributors who have provided new models for units and buildings, new skins, new item models, new icons by the dozen, and alot more. I personally have contributed 9 new icons (many for new units' new spells) and a 10 track musical score. It really is a giant project, and he's close to wrapping it up, with 8 of the 10 maps completed. Maybe people here could look to ROTD for some inspiration to get off their behinds and make something for everyone to enjoy, and to see that a largescale project with lots of original content can still be completed these days. Here's the link: http://www.wc3sear.ch/rotd/news.php - Return Of The Dragon I'm also surprised that more people haven't followed RCX's lead in making projects which can be completed by an individual or small team. The general attitude of the community around here, from what I've observed, is far less creative and willing to work than when CC was churning out maps (if not whole complete campaigns) during the peak of SC. Back then there were always people starting up new projects, always new campaigns on the horizon. However much their quality levels varied, at least people were making the effort to have fun in a creative way, using SC as a medium to tell stories to the best of their ability. Where is that spirit now? Was WC3 that dull to most of you? My advice, which nobody ever follows, is: "make stuff". If you're new to modding / campaign making, start small. Shoot for attainable goals. Finish a small project, release it, apply for hosting somewhere (here, even), find out what you did right and what you did wrong, and start again ... maybe on something more ambitious... but most importantly, make something! Don't be just a passive observer, leeching off whatever content you can find. Contribute! Start something. Be creative. |
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| Desler. | ||||||||||||||
| Heyas Joel, fancy seeing you here. And everyone. Hey guys. I thought I'd clear up a few things. I'm not here to start any flame wars. In fact, the first thing I want to do is to apologize for my actions a year ago. I made an error in judgment, and acted on impulse and was misguided by my emotions. To everyone I directly and indirectly affected, and especially to Razorclaw X - I'm sorry. It wasn't right for me to do what I did, period. I accept full responsibility for the mistake of disallowing the owners, freelancers, and fans of CC the use of the domain name. It was a total mistake, and I was a total fool to make it. I cannot emphasize that enough. I accept the blame for everything. The history of Campaign Creations - now that is something I can give you VERY accurate information on. After all, I did run the site for quite a while. As long as my memory serves me, I should be able to give quite a run-down of accurate information. Mind you, it won't be a complete comprehensive history, but it should be sufficient for those who missed or just want to reminisce over these events. Sit right down good sir, grab a cup of tea, and I'll tell ye a tale. A tale of a man and a web site. Much self boasting involved, but I just wouldn't be Desler if I didn't pat myself on the back a few hundred times each post. As long as I'm at it, I'll share my true feelings. I used to overshadow the person I really was with a bunch of unneccesary gibberish, I honestly hope I've outgrown that. THE BEGINNING - Pre-Campaign Creations: My long time Internet friend Brian Tartell messaged me. We went way back, Brian and I. He is one of the very first people I ever spoke to on the Internet back in 92. Anyways, when StarCraft first came out, we really got into it - we teamed up and won and lost our fair share of games. Eventually, it so happened that I made a map and we played it together. It was sorta a big huge fleet battle map - a real newbie map, totally ineptness. He threw the idea out that I should make a map about Star Trek. I thought about it for a while, and eventually decided to pursue the idea. I began work on a Star Trek / StarCraft crossover campaign named The Crossworlds Saga. I was just starting out in the StarCraft community, I didn't have much respect or a name, but a few news sites were willing to give me the time of day and post my news. Specifically, I remember StarCraft.org and StarShack posting my news. I pressed on, determined to meet the release date I set. Eventually, I did. During this time, I thought it might be cool to rename my site which was just called 'The Crossworlds Saga' to 'Campaign Creations'. I really liked making the Crossworlds Saga, working with the editor was fun and I could tell any story my mind willed. Thus, I designed a layout for Campaign Creations, but it never materialized just then. I released the Crossworlds Saga - a few more news sites posted about it, but in general, it came out to unfavorable reviews. I wasn't discouraged, the few good reviews I got were like gold to me, and they inspired me to press on. However, Campaign Creations still wouldn't be born for a while yet. As it happened, I got a news posting job at StarCraft Legacy. StarCraft Legacy was in shambles. For a long time, it was a great site, but recently it had been desolated. The staff had recently abandoned the site, and only 2 or so of the original staff even remained. I never learned of the full story, however, as I understand it, there was indeed some dissent, and it resulted in many of the staff quiting. Several new people were hired, among them were me, EnforcerMan, and Maddux. I don't know at what point EnforcerMan actually became the appointed leader of SCL. I think his determination in rebuilding it though made none of us question him as the leader when he eventually officially self-appointed himself as it. My role certainly wasn't a quiet one, I was vigilant in posting news, I helped convert old pages to the new layouts, in general, I was spending more time then most people would be willing to for a site that had lost the majority of its fanbase. I was content with posting news for only a short time. It didn't take long for me to realize that I wanted to make more of an impact on the community then that of a simple news man. With Brood War being released, it was an ideal time to start a new campaign. Work began on The Fenix. From StarCraft Legacy, I promoted my project. StarCraft Legacy grew fast, and I recall our traffic skyrocketed after I posted the StarCraft Site Awards. I actually didn't intend it to be anything big - I spent half the day working on it. I didn't even get EnforcerMans approval to post it. It was just something I felt like doing and then once it was done, I put it out there. It's amazing how fast someone can work when they are determined to do something. The extra traffic really helped me promote The Fenix even more. THE ERA OF CAMPAIGNS - Campaign Creations: I eventually became disgruntled with EnforcerMans ambition to put paid advertising on StarCraft Legacy (advertising that -he- would benefit from). At the time, I didn't feel it right that only he would benefit from such an arrangement while the rest of us worked for free. I certainly wasn't in it for the money at that point - but I also wasn't the type of person to do work that others would benefit more from then I would. I was a very proud and ambitious man at the time - hell, I still am. Now seemed like a good time to get Campaign Creations going. So I arranged to have a subdirectory within another StarCraft site. If my memory doesnt betray me, the site that first hosted Campaign Creations was called Tech-Base. I used the layout I had made so long ago from back when I was working on the Crossworlds Saga. I opened it up. The Fenix was just a couple weeks or so from the official release date. I pressed on, and met it ahead of schedule! All of the major news sites posted about it - all of them, except for StarCraft Legacy. The day The Fenix was released the FTP servers slowed to a crawl, and the site had a huge burst of traffic that would be unmatched until Fallen Angels release. I really talked it up, though The Fenix came out to mixed reviews. I eventually put the Crossworlds Saga up on Campaign Creations as well. Although mediocre, it was still a full completed campaign, and at that time, it was only me. I enjoyed my taste of success. There were critics of my success, mostly saying that it was based on hype. I don't remember the name, but one person in particular had a very harsh view about my success and I recall taking it personally. The site seemed to develop a small fan base - although it was almost impossible to see just whom was there at such an early time, as there was no forum there. It occured to me that I could use the momentum that was still stirring from The Fenix and the buzz on the news sites to recruit others in who could benefit from CC as well as add to it. The first people I contacted (I'm uncertain whom was first) was Di and Sharandar, both of whom I spotted on the Battle.net forums. Di had a helpful StarEdit site at the time, and Sharandar was just starting Reclamation of Aiur. It was a voiced campaign, and I was impressed with what I saw at the time. So they joined up. Soon thereafter, Varanus was recruited. He was a unique kinda guy who really liked Zerg campaigns. I think he and Razorclaw X would have gotten along famously had they actually been authors in the same era. Rudder also joined our ranks with his Space Hulk campaign, a small series of installation level missions based on Space Hulk. Among all the people I recruited into the fold at the time, by far, I was most impressed with The Oracle. He was a cocky, ambitious individual. I tried not to be cocky in the public eye, but privately, I admired him for the reason that he was almost exactly like me. Had I not started Campaign Creations, I believe he would have eventually done something similar. We went on like this for a few months, switching layouts very often. I designed the graphics for all the first ones. StarCraft editing on the other hand was progressing slowly. StarDraft was nice, but it was extremely limited. You had an extremely narrow options of the way StarCraft could be modified. Camelot Systems, thanks to the great efforts of Di, affiliated with us. Di merged his site with the core Campaign Creations site. We got our own domain name. Things were going great. A vaporware (though unknowing to most of us) editor from Bioweaponz promised some pretty crazy things that held hope that most of us could modify StarCraft more extensively then we ever dreamed. I didn't put much stock into it myself, but a few people began writing mods that would utilize the tools that didn't even exist. The two that CC hosted were Purity of a Race, and WaterStarCraft. Our ranks grew - I handpicked every capable campaign maker I could find. There were a great many to choose from, but I only picked a few. It may have not been completely fair, but it worked. We got a forum up and running, and finally began to build a community at that point. Before it was just people making campaigns and talking through email. The forum changed everything though. Campaigns were certainly released much slower after that. Opinion changed everything, for me at least. But all the authors on CC appreciated the forum. I eventually removed The Crossworlds Saga permanently from the site, as it was a fairly piece of shabby worked compared to everything else up there. I myself worked on E.D.A.S.T. after The Fenix, inspired by a piece of anime music I heard. The entire concept of E.D.A.S.T. was, like almost all my ideas, born from a passing thought, an imagination of a particular moment, based around music. Most of my story was also based in this way. I didn't create complex webs or plan out story too far ahead. Rather, I listened to my music collection, thought of a scene in my head, then tried to work that scene into the existing story. It was a very odd way of doing things, but it worked for me. E.D.A.S.T. gave me my first opportunity to work with Joel Steudler, who would eventually become integral to every single campaign I ever made from there on in. http://web.archive.org/web/19991006045705/http://www.campaigncreations.com/ - After E.D.A.S.T. was released to another slew of mixed reviews, my attention wavered. I switched from Fall from Grace, to The Fenix Special Edition (which never materialized), to Final Fantasy Ascension, which I grew to hate in my own mind. Oracle was at the time vigilantly pursuing Legacy of the Confederation II. He was determined to make a matchless campaign, superior to any of mine or Auspex's Antioch Chronicles. Campaign Creations grew quickly, and was pretty much THE site to visit. After my unsuccessful promotion of Final Fantasy Ascension, I took a break, quit, and handed the site off to DI. He expanded it with a new layout, made it grow, and branched out into other games. http://web.archive.org/web/19991105002301/http://www.campaigncreations.com/ Di hired many different people. Some of them branched off to make their own sites, while others just never worked at all. I eventually returned to CC, and Di returned control of the site to me willingly, without objection. He insisted that he'd be busy soon or already was with his school, and that was definitely true, as he permanently left CC soon thereafter. When I got back, I didn't feel much like working on E.D.A.S.T., despite putting a large portion of work into Episode 2 already. Rather, I just released a synopsis. After reading it, I decided that it wouldn't have been that great anyways. In all honesty, looking at any of my campaigns today makes me realize how cartoonish a lot of the dialogue was. I took myself far too seriously. I was touting off with words like 'professionalism' and 'polish', while my campaigns belonged in a lineup of Saturday morning cartoons. A small secret that no longer has any significance - I once had a conversation with Auspex. And despite him publicly saying that he never played any campaigns, he did in fact tell me in private that he played mostly everything that came out, but that nothing really impressed him. Me being who I was then and probably still a bit now, wrote him off as arrogant, moreso then any one I met to that point. I didn't admit my feelings to anyone except those I worked closely with and some sparse friends, but I actually despised Auspex, despite public announcements of respect and admiration. He held a bit of respect for doing the things he did, but I couldn't fathom how he would just spit on the boot of fellow campaign makers - colleagues in his own field. I can understand it a bit more today, and I respect his opinions now, but at the time, it really ate at me. Campaign Creations was affected by the great fall of the 'net (for those unfamiliar, the ad revenues basically dried up across the entire Net at the time, and no one knew what to do). Because some servers could no longer afford to host us, we ended up becoming nomads, constantly (or what seemed like to me, anyways) moving from one server to another. The moves affected me greatly. They put me under a lot of pressure. It was the most difficult time I had while running CC - the uncertainty was unnerving, and it was impossible to pay for a site that used so much bandwidth. By that time, the site had been up for almost a year. The moves, resetting the server stuff, contacting everyone with the new information, fixing all the links, all this by myself while trying to work on campaigns. It was quite a headache, but I never thought of quitting for a moment around that time. During the moves, we sorta shook the loose ends out, some authors dropped off, mostly from the alternate games that Di had brought aboard. I'm sure I also lost GoldenUrgs assistance due to lack of total communication. Only the dedicated moved with us. The sites popularity was crushing us under our own weight as we wore out our welcome on server after server. Blizzard Games, GameGlow, and others. Hell, I even considered tossing the domain name out the Window and moving the site to GameSpy. I contacted them and they offered us a spot on the condition that we would completely cover StarCraft - all news. I wasn't too interested in that, and Joel helped me see the advantages Campaign Creations had over a news site. During all of this, we continued to gain new authors, valuable people. Legion, Palin, Codebreaker, Cerberus, and Razorclaw X. I did my best to keep the site running for everyone. We took a huge hit when, through our wheelings and dealings with various people, we were able to get GameSpy to run a front page release of Fallen Angel. It was quite an accomplishment, and Oracle was satisfied, I think, with the traffic. Eventually, I think after that though, he lost interest, and thus, never finished LOTC. http://web.archive.org/web/20010405121747/http://www.campaigncreations.com/ It's quite a shame really, it woulda been grand. Personally, I always thought of Oracle as a bit odd, he had a unique approach to everything. He also had the balls to fight for what he wanted. Because I admired him, I was able to get along with him easily. I'm sure I could have just as easily been offended by him if I didn't know him as well as I did. After move after move, we finally found stable hosting for Campaign Creations at Recon Networks. http://web.archive.org/web/20010927073456/http://campaigncreations.com/ - I thought it'd be just another server though that we'd have to move from, so I kept on my toes and was already looking for alternative hosts the moment I stepped aboard. Fortunately, it turned out, we didn't need it. Most everything else I consider 'recent history'. I left the site in RCX's hands permanently. Eventually I came back around and started working on the Crossworlds Saga (not a remake, an entirely new campaign), but that fizzled as WarCraft 3 neared, and my anticipation stirred. WC3 is an era unknown to me. Although I worked for several months on one campaign which still largely exists (Mistiria), uncomplete and unseen on my hard drive, real life finally caught up with me with its sharp teeth and grabbed me by the neck. That's basically it. I'd type more maybe, but I'm pretty exhausted as it is from typing all of this. Another time perhaps. Hopefully this gives you a little bit of insight into what things were really like and how I really felt about a few subjects. I have nothing to hide any longer, and if I ever do get back into this somehow, it's going to be a lot different. For one thing, I certainly won't announce my new project until its ready to be released. =) |
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| Legion | ||||||||||||||
| Hey Joel, hey Desler. Great to see you again. Wow, I really wish things were like that again, now that I've seen the old layout of CC and all. |
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| Magic | ||||||||||||||
| Thank you, Desler. | ||||||||||||||
| TheAvenger | ||||||||||||||
| Wow that web archive is the greatest! Thanks! EDIT: Holy crap I found somthing amazing in the forums of 2001!!! I will edit this post after i read! EDIT: Back in 2001. Right in the time this archived forum was archived. I got 2 of my friends to create accounts on the forum. Lol all of us got banned in one way or another. I can't find mine but I found my retarted (He acted retarted that is) friend "Jeffwarrior" all the way at the bottem of page 1. Man seeing that brings back a lot. I can't find anything under the name of "Captian Koe Lence (My name before I was banned.)" But I will keep looking. I know I must have posted something somewhere! This is great. |
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Campaign Creations
