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Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 6:18 am
by Andrea Rosa
Eredalis wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 11:46 pm Oh my gosh! You should reconsider this.
Suggestion: Simply use a fixed number of some hero Zerg (Hunter Killer, Devourer, etc) for guarding the cerebrate. And don't use permanent unit creation: Using a permanent firing trigger can be cause a big backlash by creating yellow-lined error messages in the game.

Woah, I don't know why this happened to you. The Hydralisks keep spawning only as long as you have units in proximity of the Cerebrate (6 Hydralisks are spawned roughly every 5-7 seconds), and then they attack a location that is centered on those units via the Patrol order. I can see that you have some units directly to the north of the Cerebrate (presumably Tanks, which is an ok tactic as long as an handful of Battlecruisers support them). Judging by how many Hydralisks have been spawned, your units shouldn't be there at all, in fact they should have been completely obliterated by that point, so I have no answers. As for the error messages, this is highly improbable to occur, because there is a check on the total number of Hydralisks that can be present on the map at the same time. The idea of using a fixed number of Hunter Killers has been used elsewhere in the campaign, but in this case I want a really strong defense mechanism, because in the original campaign killing the Cerebrate was far too easy.

Eredalis wrote: Sat Apr 04, 2020 11:46 pm You have removed some of the brown terran buildings from the start?
I do not recommend this, because the AI - especially the basis script - inclines to block themselves with buildings, which the AI has to construct to produces units. Set all core buildings on the map from scratch.

Yes, the Brown Terrans start without a Factory, and this was done intentionally (in the original, they started without the Academy). However, those two Supply Depots shouldn't be there, nor should be that Barrack: it looks like the Brown Terrans had to rebuild part of their base after having suffered an attack. In any case, I don't see this as a big problem, for the following reasons:

1) The Brown Terrans have a marginal role in this map.
2) They use Dropships to attack, so it's not a big issue if they get stuck somewhere in their base.
3) That bunch of units looks like a mildly strong defense that is quite easy to overcome.
4) If the Player decides to attack the Brown Terrans, then he is very likely going to pursue the B objective, which means that the Player has many Battlecruisers: in that case the Brown Terrans stand no chance anyway, regardless whether their units are concentrated in a single point or not.


Again, thanks for your valuable feedback, Eredalis!

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 6:25 am
by Andrea Rosa
Oh, wait, I've just found the problem with the "dancing" Hydralisks: they were attacking the wrong floating location! I'm fixing the map right now, it will be available for download soon. Thank you very much, I would have never spotted this nasty bug without your help!

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 7:34 am
by Eredalis
I can see that you have some units directly to the north of the Cerebrate (presumably Tanks, which is an ok tactic as long as an handful of Battlecruisers support them).
My tactic was the same like in the original map, which I've played a couple of days before I tried the SE version.
I used mass of Marines and Tanks to overcome the entire left side of the map. It was much more difficult because of the Nydus canals. After the destruction of the first two Zerg colonies, I've sent my men to that cliff in the middle, from which they could easily use heavy firepower to the main Hive of the orange Zerg. I produced Marines all the time and cover all my tanks (which was nearly a dozen).

What you see at the picture, is only what was left of my squadron. The orange Zerg had nothing left in the tank to offer opposition to me. Well, except for the one million spawing Hydralisks... :durr:
it looks like the Brown Terrans had to rebuild part of their base after having suffered an attack.
I haven't not yet attacked the brown Terran. There are many more units that seems to be stuck, there are dancing, too.

/edit:
Wait, I'll throw a short clip together.
There you go: https://youtu.be/tb4ASwupd-U

After seeing the clip, you will agreed that something is fishy. Although I don't have a f... clue what the hell is going on there.

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 8:14 am
by Andrea Rosa
Man, what is happening in the Brown base is simply insane! I've never seen anything like that during any of my many playthroughs, could it be a quirk of StarCraft Remastered? In any case, extreme problems require extreme solutions: I will disable Supply Depots for the Brown Terrans.

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 8:27 am
by Eredalis
...could it be a quirk of StarCraft Remastered?
Maybe. As I mentioned before, there are in fact some disctinctions between Brood War and Remastered.
I will disable Supply Depots for the Brown Terrans.
Don't do that! The AI gets real problems if such important buildings aren't available anymore.
Instead, give the Terran his Factory back. As far as my experience goes, the basis AI needs all of its factory buildings from the start. Minor buildings only for research purposes don't have to set from the start, but should also be placed...

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 9:37 am
by Andrea Rosa
Okay, the fixed version is online.

The Supply Depots have not been disabled. The Brown Terrans now start with a Factory and also an additional Starport (just like in the original map). Also, I have placed an extra Barracks, so they should not build another one in an undesirable place.

As for the respawning Hydralisks, they have been replaced by modified Hunter Killers, edited to look like normal Hydralisks (this allows the computer to check their number independently from the real Hydralisks -- the drawback is that they will not burrow if the Player's attack fails, and the computer will be unable to use them to attack the Player's base). The respawning has been delayed by some seconds, and there will never be more than 18 of them at any given time, so the risk of getting error messages is averted. Finally, they will always target the correct location.

If everything is okay, I will ask Chris to upload the new version into his archive.

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 8:47 am
by chris
Andrea Rosa, now that you have finished this the next thing you need to do is play Vagrants. Holy shit what an amazing campaign that was (at least it was until the end of mission 6, from that point the campaign suddenly becomes completely broken and power overwhelming becomes obligatory). The reason you in particular need to play this is because its plot design is so similar to your style and it is going to give you a tremendous amount of inspiration for pretty much ALL pre-overmind-death campaigns that can possibly be made. Also the whole packaging of this campaign makes it feel like an official expansion.

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 5:26 pm
by Andrea Rosa
chris wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 8:47 am Andrea Rosa, now that you have finished this the next thing you need to do is play Vagrants. Holy shit what an amazing campaign that was (at least it was until the end of mission 6, from that point the campaign suddenly becomes completely broken and power overwhelming becomes obligatory). The reason you in particular need to play this is because its plot design is so similar to your style and it is going to give you a tremendous amount of inspiration for pretty much ALL pre-overmind-death campaigns that can possibly be made. Also the whole packaging of this campaign makes it feel like an official expansion.

Thanks for the suggestion Chris, I won't forget to check Vagrants sooner or later. By the way, it looks like your list does not include the original Antioch Chronicles by Ruben Moreno aka Auspex Turmalis (there is an Antioch Chronicles, but it is for SC2). Why? It's a classic, if I remember correctly it was the first custom campaign to feature voice acting.

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 5:27 pm
by Andrea Rosa
MINOR UPDATE

Fixed a glitch in Mission 2 that could hinder the detection of the rescued Protoss units when the Player brings them back to his base.

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 10:33 pm
by chris
Andrea Rosa wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 5:26 pmit looks like your list does not include the original Antioch Chronicles by Ruben Moreno aka Auspex Turmalis (there is an Antioch Chronicles, but it is for SC2). Why? It's a classic, if I remember correctly it was the first custom campaign to feature voice acting.
There's a few reasons why:

- the third and last chapter is only available for StarCraft 2
- there is no point in recommending or reviewing the same campaign for two different platforms
- the original stardraft executables do not work on Windows 10 which means I'm forced to rely on Pr0nogo's patching.

Having said this, blizzard is notorious for issuing patches to StarCraft2 that breaks existing campaigns. If the third chapter gets ported to broodwar I will review the broodwar version instead of the StarCraft 2 version and recommend that instead of the starcraft 2 version. No one seems to be interested in doing such a port however.

In other news, my review for ascension of Duran has been paused temporarily as I have contacted the author in hopes of fixing the campaign. If I do not receive a reply by the time I reach the church campaigns, I will resume my review with the available content as is. My review of Echoes of the swarm ended quite early because the plot is about the only thing excellent, good, or even mediocre about that campaign. It has Liberations's bug problems on steroids with one map so buggy it can't even open.

Update: Dark swarm moved to Tier A as a bit of research reveals that it has voice acting.

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2020 6:52 am
by Andrea Rosa
chris wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 10:33 pm There's a few reasons why:

- the third and last chapter is only available for StarCraft 2
- there is no point in recommending or reviewing the same campaign for two different platforms
- the original stardraft executables do not work on Windows 10 which means I'm forced to rely on Pr0nogo's patching.

I see. I still have the original Chapter 1 in my StarCraft campaign folder, and I'm very fond of it. I did not use the stardraft executable, I downloaded the custom voices and portraits separately and installed them manually, so I need to rename the related directories when I want to play the campaign.

chris wrote: Thu Apr 02, 2020 5:14 am Still, Vagrants up until mission 7 is one of the best campaigns I have ever played and it is the closest thing to an Eredalis campaign that is in English. It's plot is like an Andrea Rosa campaign on steroids, it's gameplay is mostly micro but also features good macro gameplay. Unfourtunately, starting from the end of mission 6 the quality of the campaign falls of a cliff as there was clearly no testing done from that point onwards.

Honestly, I have never considered myself particularly good at story making, both for a general lack of creativity when it comes to making a story, and for the language barrier that I constantly struggle to overcome. I know that the plot and the language are two very different things, but the plot can be dampened by a mediocre use of English and vocabulary poverty (undoubtedly, I would have had an easier time if I had written my campaigns in Italian, but then who would have played them?). For these reasons I was quite surprised to see that both ToH and VotS got a perfect score in the plot category, but I can't deny that my task was greatly facilitated by the fact that I had a vast and well-established lore to tap into (I'm particularly satisfied with how I recreated Duke's asshole attitude in VotS, even though he only has a couple of lines).

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2020 1:18 pm
by chris
Andrea Rosa wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 6:52 am I see. I still have the original Chapter 1 in my StarCraft campaign folder, and I'm very fond of it. I did not use the stardraft executable, I downloaded the custom voices and portraits separately and installed them manually, so I need to rename the related directories when I want to play the campaign.
Fun fact: Antioch chronicles and wicked reality are the only two modded campaigns ever made that I have never had on any PC.

The first custom campaigns I ever got were stellar forces, insurrection, and retribution, all 3 at once were included on the first pirated starcraft CD I bought as my 3rd/4th video game ever together with half life. Retribution was the first I played, insurrection I played later but didn't like that much because of its problems. I had no idea the files for stellar forces were even for stellar forces until very recently as they were in a folder simply called Maps in the normal Maps folder. I assumed they were just random maps included as part of brood war.

Next I would get Mystics which was an extremely short half done campaign, I still have the exe for that but the actual campaign is missing sadly. I got this on the 2nd pirated starcraft CD I bought.

I would eventually buy a third CD later, that one included resurgence and fallen angel. The former was so good it inspired me to make my first and only custom campaign: a 3 map sequel to resurgence. I'll be reviewing my campaign together with resurgence but most likely my sequel will end up being so bad that I won't include it with resurgence. I'm really interested to see how well resurgence has aged. Fallen angel was just weird and I think it was an unfinished version since I remember it ended on a cliffhanger.

Finally I got internet in 2006 and wanted to find the starcraft campaign community but I quickly realized I was far too late to the party. However I did find a russian site called rakdent that featured links to some starcraft campaigns. What struck me is how many of them were made or featured by this community called "Campaign creations". The website was dead but there was a forum, this forum. I would eventually register and I would play the following "campaign creations" campaigns linked from rakdent: Vision of the future (excluding 4 and zeji), fall from grace, celestial irruption, EDAST, and the first legacy of the confederation (but I would not finish it). Rakdent did have a link to antioch chronicles but the link to it was dead as well as the original website that appeared to be hosting it. It wasn't until last autumn that I realized just how important antioch chronicles was to the history of starcraft campaign creating.
Andrea Rosa wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 6:52 am Honestly, I have never considered myself particularly good at story making, both for a general lack of creativity when it comes to making a story, and for the language barrier that I constantly struggle to overcome. I know that the plot and the language are two very different things, but the plot can be dampened by a mediocre use of English and vocabulary poverty (undoubtedly, I would have had an easier time if I had written my campaigns in Italian, but then who would have played them?). For these reasons I was quite surprised to see that both ToH and VotS got a perfect score in the plot category, but I can't deny that my task was greatly facilitated by the fact that I had a vast and well-established lore to tap into (I'm particularly satisfied with how I recreated Duke's asshole attitude in VotS, even though he only has a couple of lines).
You make an effort to overcome these obstables while others who speak english as their first language just quickly do the writing without thinking. Perhaps the effort is more important than the fluency. That's the conclusion I have to draw based on the awful English and awful plot writing in most campaigns out there. Perhaps Juxtapose is also not a native english speaker because both you and him seem to have the same style.

On another note, I have reached the Church campaigns a lot earlier than expected. Echoes and Echoes of the swarm turned out to be a lot worse than expected and dark swarm has voice acting so it was moved to tier A. I may take a break from reviewing campaigns and check out hearthstone's latest updates for a bit. I've also decided I will do the newly added entry to tier C, Montag: quest for freedom, before I do the church campaigns but only after I have finished reviewing Ascension of Duran. I'm now going to find the Echoes thread in the 2009 campaign contest and post my review of the campaign there.

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2020 9:44 am
by Andrea Rosa
chris wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 1:18 pm The first custom campaigns I ever got were stellar forces, insurrection, and retribution, all 3 at once were included on the first pirated starcraft CD I bought as my 3rd/4th video game ever together with half life.

StarCraft was my third PC game, after Quake II and Age of Empires (I bought my first PC in the early days of 1998, after a long gaming life spent on the Atari 2600, Commodore 64 and Amiga, and of course countless coin-op arcade games). These three games blew my mind to such an extent that I ended up making custom content for all of them. I attempted to create my very first StarCraft campaign in 2000, but unfortunately it was lost forever due to hardware failure of my first hard drive (well, not so unfortunately, honestly those maps were terrible LOL). I had to wait until 2002 to get Internet at home and start downloading stuff. Previously I could access the web at work, and that's how I first heard of The Antioch Chronicles, but I couldn't bring it home because the files were too large to fit on floppy disks (USB drives were still a costly high-tech novelty back in those days).

chris wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 1:18 pm Rakdent did have a link to antioch chronicles but the link to it was dead as well as the original website that appeared to be hosting it. It wasn't until last autumn that I realized just how important antioch chronicles was to the history of starcraft campaign creating.

In case you're interested (and in case you don't know already) here's the link to the new website:
https://antiochforever.org/wiki.pl?The_ ... Chronicles

By the way, please update your MEGA archive with the latest version of Enslavers SE.

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2020 10:12 am
by chris
Uh, where's the updated version?

Oh and as you have probably noticed, there have been some big changes to the spreadsheet. A new column and an entirely new tier of campaigns have been added to the list. After adding Montag and checking it out briefly I began to wonder if there were other potentially good campaigns I had missed and so I lowered my standards and looked for unmodded campaigns where almost all maps have 3 figure or larger filesizes as opposed to 4 figure sizes which was my previous standard. The result is 10 campaigns in the new Corona tier (or E-tier) as well as three new campaigns added to A tier (because they have voice acting). Another interesting thing is that among these I actually picked a campaign from 1998. 1998 is by far the worst year in starcraft campaign history and until now only the 4 CD/pay campaigns and Antioch chronicles have managed to be worthy of even existing on my spreadsheet. That has now changed, Fringe Wars has become the first and only unmodded and free campaign from 1998 to make it onto the spreadsheet... and to Tier A, not Corona tier!

Re: Enslavers Special Edition

Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2020 3:31 pm
by Andrea Rosa
chris wrote: Fri Apr 10, 2020 10:12 am Uh, where's the updated version?

Same link as before. That's why I like Mediafire, it allows to update files and preserve their address.

chris wrote: Fri Apr 10, 2020 10:12 am I began to wonder if there were other potentially good campaigns I had missed and so I lowered my standards and looked for unmodded campaigns where almost all maps have 3 figure or larger filesizes as opposed to 4 figure sizes which was my previous standard.

An old campaign that comes to my mind is "The Alliance" by Varanus, but you may already know it, since I see that you have worked with Varanus in your sequel to Resurgence. However, in case you have never experienced The Alliance, I'll tell you, it's not good. Indeed, it has nearly every possible problem imaginable: the story is a mess (it is supposed to take place after Enslavers and after the death of the Overmind, yet Schezar behaves like most of the events in Enslavers never happened, and the Conclave not only still exists, but for some reason they are allied with the Terran Dominion), most of the maps are huge and empty, the installation maps are especially ugly, and some missions are bug-ridden. But the most absurd thing is that the maps are presented in reverse order (there are three or four episodes, each made up by 4-missions campaigns, and you must play mission 4 first, then mission 3, 2 and 1, I'm dead serious). On top of all, the file names don't match those found in the triggers, so when you finish a mission the game is unable to load the next one. It's a shame, because some effort seems to have been actually put into it, the dialogues aren't entirely bad, and the missions have well thought-out titles, but this isn't enough to redeem the whole campaign. The good thing about The Alliance is that it gave me the idea for a campaign based on Schezar, and more than a decade and half later Tales of Halcyon was born. If you want to add it to your list, you can find it in the StarCraft Fan Campaign Listing, just don't get confused with the homonymous campaign made by Sodon, which is already present on your spreadsheet.