Honourless

General
Game type: RPG
Number of human players: 1
Game length: 2 - 3 hours
Map Size: 256x256

Story
The kingdom of Asagorthe has been split in half by a bloody war between its king and its prince. As the body count rises, trust and honour prove obsolete as the kingdom's inhabitants struggle to survive. A boy from a small village named Ardanos has become a young man and seeks to carry his own weight. As he finds himself more deeply entangled in the political and military strife, he discovers what lengths he and others will go to in the names of victory and survival.

Main Characters
- Ardanos: A young idealist that joins the military in the hopes of supporting his family. His understanding of right and wrong will be challenged in many ways and he runs the risk of growing into a cold and evil man.
- Silvanes: A professional thief and all-around rogue that finds a friend in the trusting Ardanos.
- Celestine: A hermit woman with a reputation for witchcraft. Her reputation has ostracized her from the nearby town of Durvin.
- King Tenarus: The benevolent ruler of Citadel. His renowned kindness has gradually dried up as he is forced to make difficult decisions in the war against his own son.
- Prince Correon: The son of Teranus. His idealistic differences with his father morphed into a declaration of war after an attempt was made to murder him.
- Kordanux: King Teranus' adviser and commander of his efficient special agents, the Honourless.
- Beroud & Carsian: Two swashbucklers from the northern island of Ashia that find themselves stranded in the middle of the war.
- Alaira: A lady of nobility who has grown disillusioned by the rift between Teranus and her beloved Correon.

Description
This is a redux of PGConquerer's original map. It has been one of my favorites since I first played it in 2005 or so, but a couple of glitches stuck out to me. After a recent revisit, I decided to make some changes to the map. I feel justified in doing so because I believe some of the problems were simply oversights and alterations in the game's programming due to patches. I did not alter the story in any way. I don't believe my changes conflict with the original author's intentions. I do hope that no one (especially PGConquerer himself) takes offense to my modifying the map. The exact changes (spoilers included) are listed below.

Differences from the original
- Added hyper triggers.
- Corrected spelling/grammar errors in the game's text.
- Modified the amount of time some of the text spent onscreen, which was way too much or too little, in some cases.
- There were a few cases where relationships weren't clear. In one such case, two unseen characters are sometimes referenced as being father and daughter, and at other times, uncle and niece. I made sure that father/daughter was consistently mentioned, in that example.
- There were a couple of spots in the map's terrain that were difficult or impossible for player-controlled vultures to navigate. I fixed those.
- At some point, a patch caused the AI to tard out and not attack whenever its alliance status was switched with the human player. There are several cases in the original game where units were clearly meant to attack and simply didn't. I fixed this by issuing a "patrol" order just after an AI player switched alliances and it seems to work pretty well. My luck with the "attack" order was much worse.
- I fixed a few cases of randomness that could not be controlled by the player and that sometimes made the game unbeatable. The most significant case is when the kingdom that Ardanos originally fights for turns against him and he must escape the city with almost no help. In the original, an invincible enemy would sometimes wander into the player's safe zone and force a restart. I made sure that was fixed. At other times a unit would be unexpectedly taken from the player's control and then given back just as unexpectedly. If the player did not get a chance to heal the character before it was taken and returned, it might be in a very difficult spot with no health. I made sure cases like that were eliminated too.
- I made a fairly significant alteration to the final battle. After defeating the main villain, and after all the hype about the northern barbarians, the actual fight with them felt anti-climactic in the original. It was easy to arrange your units in such a way that you simply held off wave after wave for 10 minutes until the game ended without losing any men. I made the barbarians' chieftain much tougher and gave him a tough henchman. I also reduced the time you spend holding off the barbarians from 10 minutes to 5 minutes.

Any feedback given would be appreciated. I hope you enjoy it!

Download My Version Here: http://www.staredit.net/?file=2434
Download PGConquerer's Original Version Here: http://www.staredit.net/files/856/

Attachments:

Post has been edited 6 time(s), last time on Jan 31 2012, 12:33 am by Doodan.

The unit orders are a bit flakey. Patrol really means "attack to this position, and then attack to back where you were". The 'attack' order is more like "move to this position, but attack anything that obstructs you". Move is just move.

I had a play for about 10 minutes until getting bored. Storyline was quite in-depth. Too bad the game has practically zero systems. Pre-placed monsters, vanilla terrain, unit sounds unmuted, etc.

Death Knights 3 is still my all time fav when it comes to the RPGs of that 'era'.

I remember playing this a longggg time ago and getting glitched where you drive the carrier down.
Thanks for remaking this :]. looking forward to replaying a piece of my childhood!

I also noticed that patrolling units seemed more likely to help their fellow units if they fell under attack. Units with the "attack" order seemed more selfish and only responded if they themselves were attacked.

I'll have to try DK3. I do hope you'll give this map another chance. The first half is largely stage setting, but the second half is when all of the dramatic tension starts to unfold. It gets pretty exciting around that point!

You're welcome! Let me know how what you think.

I'm gonna go try this out right now and tell you what I think of it. Never seen this one so it will be nice to learn the storyline of. I also read the spoilers which make it sound more exciting than my first interpretation of reading the rest. Knowing there is more exciting stuff towards the end will keep me playing/saving. =)

Yeah, seriously, it's like this map is practically from 2001. Oh wait.

Not quite. I've found patrolling units to be more aggressive, and have a larger target acquisition range.

Doesn't attack make the unit move to the location before beginning its attack, whereas patrol makes it attack anything in its way?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 31 2012, 2:19 am by Dem0nS1ayer.

Ordering attack to location in triggers is the same as A-move.

SOOOO... how are you guys liking the map?

I haven't played it yet. Probably this coming weekend I will and I'll give a proper review then.

Gah, haven't had the time to play yet... hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday I can finish this because I cannot save a file to replay later because I forget everything

Doodan come to channel donuts on US EAST sometime and I'll play DK3 with you.

I do believe you are mistaken, sir.

*bump*

Anyone have some feedback for meh?

I should tell PGC ya updated this ^_^ I still keep in contact with him on facebook.

Feedback: I'm scared by the length to start it when I already have another unfinished campaign from years ago I'm still trying to finish without cheats xD.

I really hope he doesn't mind! I sent him an email years ago telling him how much I enjoyed his work.
This is certainly not as long as a campaign. Give it a whirl! The first 30 - 45 minutes are the slowest, but once the story starts to speed up, you won't really notice the time going by.

I'd still like some feedback from anyone who's finished it, pl0x.