The Antioch Chronicles: Remastered

Installation Instructions:

Download the zip file containing maps and the mod at http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/antioch-chronicles-remastered/files/ . Place the Antioch Remastered directory in your StarCraft 2/Maps folder. Place AntiochRemastered.SC2Mod in your mods directory.

Download the StarCraft: Mass Recall mod and place it in your mods folder.

Note: Pressing cancel on the briefing screen will attempt to load the StarCraft Mass Recall map loader. We're working on a loader of our own, but for now please...don't click that button.

To play:

Open Antioch1-1.SC2Map in the editor. Press the Test Document button.

If you are interested in helping with this project, please see the bottom of this post.

What is this?

This is the alpha release of a StarCraft 2 remake of the seminal StarCraft custom campaign known as the Antioch Chronicles. This project is a high-fidelity reproduction of the original campaign with few enhancements taking advantage of the StarCraft 2 editor.

This version contains only Episode 1 of the campaign. It uses the StarCraft: Mass Recall mod, which the creators were generous enough to allow us to use.

What is the Antioch Chronicles?

In 1998, not long after StarCraft was released, a mapmaker calling himself Auspex Turmalis (Ruben Moreno) released episode 1 of a custom campaign that he called The Antioch Chronicles. The campaign featured custom audio, perhaps most notable for how well Auspex reproduced the Protoss audio effects. Also impressive was the fact that Auspex recorded all of the character voices himself.

Episode 2 was released in 1999. For the second campaign, creative duties were split between Auspex and Zeus Legion (Eric Dieter), with additional voice support acting by Ytse-Jam (Juan Mantilla) and Macbeth (Eric Ladd). By the release of Episode 2, the Antioch Chronicles had gathered a large and active fan base.

Unfortunately, a promised Episode 3 never came to fruition. Still, the first two episodes did much to shape the early StarCraft modding community and remain in the popular conscious fifteen years later. For more information about the Antioch Chronicles, visit http://antioch.snow-fall.com/wiki.pl?The_Antioch_Chronicles .

Why are you doing this?

We're all longstanding members of the Antioch Chronicles fan community, which never really died out, despite the campaign's cancellation. Last month, an idle forum thread about wanting the replay the Antioch Chronicles drew a surprising amount of attention for our tiny forum and within days we'd launched the project.

What's next?

Episode 2 is approximately 80% done, so we hope to have that in alpha in the next couple of weeks. Once we have both episodes released, we'll gather community feedback and polish the maps accordingly.

Once we're satisfied with the state of the maps, we plan to plan to begin phase 2, where we'll bring the campaign up to 2015 standards. This includes but is not limited to giving the heroes special powers, tightening up and combining maps, and creating actual cutscenes.

Can I help?

We could definitely use some help. The easiest thing you can do is to download the campaign and play through it, giving us as much feedback as you'd like. Balance feedback is especially welcome, as these maps haven't really been play tested in that way. If you run into trouble, typing "power overwhelming" in the chat will enable god mode for your current units and "show me the money" will give you 10,000 credits and gas. If a map is just totally broken, please just move onto the next one. We'll try to get any critical bugs patched ASAP.

If you'd like to join the team, we'd be happy to have you as long as you can make a honest time commitment to the project—it doesn't need to be a lot of time, we just need to know what we can count on you for. Here's what we could use help with:

• Polishing the terrain on the existing maps.
  
• Adding special effects to the maps (specifically, some explosions).
  
• Advanced trigger editing to spice up the maps.
  
• AI work to make the enemies more interesting (it's mostly just attack waves now).
  
• Creating new maps for phase 2 (where necessary).
  
• Creating cutscenes.
  
• Getting talking portraits set up.
  
• Adding powers to hero units.
  
• Creating artwork for the logo, loading screens, map loader, and more.
  
• Anything else you want to offer.
  
• Please send me a private message if you're interested in joining the team.
  

Who are you?

Team Antioch has four members: Alevice, DarkTZeratul, dine, and Lucid Iguana. We've known each other for about a decade. Prior to this project, only Alevice had any experience in the editor, but we've proven to be quick studies. We've recently been joined by ace terrainer wargirl, as well.

Here are some work in progress images:

Mt. Midnight

Bora Dalis 1

Bora Dalis 2

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 16 2015, 8:15 pm by Lucid Iguana.

This looks pretty cool. Despite making campaigns before, I've never actually played The Antioch Chronicles (which sounds blasphemous now that I say it), but I really should. Unfortunately, I don't have SC2, so I can't test this out for you, but it looks good nonetheless!

I could pretty easily test this on max settings and probably offer voice acting talents that match the original's, but you'd have to get a bit further along in terms of completion before I could commit either way.

We've released a quite nice beta version of Episode 1 recently. If you haven't had a chance yet to check it out, this is a great place to start.

Installation Instructions:
Download the zip file containing maps and the mod at http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/antioch-chronicles-remastered/files/ . Place the Antioch Remastered directory in your StarCraft 2/Maps folder. Place AntiochRemastered.SC2Mod in your mods directory.

Download the StarCraft: Mass Recall mod (http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/starcraft-mass-recall/files/61-scmrmod-v5-4/) and place it in your mods folder.

Will do a recorded, commentated run through this in a few days, and post it to YouTube.

If you're looking for a teaser, Jayborino has started a Let's Play series on the campaign. You can see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y88waAAZDzs&feature=youtu.be .

Went through the first four maps. Turmalis' weapon emits from below him, instead of from his Arbiter. There are a couple of other weird inconsistencies (e.g. defaulting to SC2 voice acting for Zealots) that should probably be looked at.

While I appreciate the terrain being re-imagined and like the aesthetic that has been attained in certain areas (lava notwithstanding, SC2 ashworld tileset is horrible, but nothing you guys can really do about that), the majority of your project's issues stem from the fact that the source material is too minimalist to feel good in a 3D game. That's why ports of vanilla and Brood War don't fit as well - they didn't have many in-game cinematics, they didn't have much substance to their presentation nor their story, and their characters barely had any lines of dialogue. TAC is very much like that, suffering from vanilla syndrome in that it doesn't have enough interaction with the player to deliver a good experience.

As it stands, a 1:1 port of TAC from Brood War into SC2 is not going to yield great results because of many of these factors. If I were you guys, I'd consider enlisting other voice actors to re-voice everyone's lines after rewriting the script to include much, much more dialogue. That's assuming you guys want to make something great out of TAC, instead of just porting it, but if you simply mean to 'reproduce' it instead of producing a better product than Auspex and co. had originally done themselves, then keep on keeping on. As it stands this is as close as SC2 could probably get to the original TAC, but since 3D games don't work well with minimalist designs, the original doesn't shine very well in this case.

My recorded run points out a couple of other problems and concerns, as well as praises and compliments, and general comments on the flow of the gameplay. I read somewhere that you plan on combining maps one and two, which is probably a good idea since the first and second maps are pretty dull by themselves. Consider finding a way to make the AI more aggressive in nature, and find a way to keep the player busy with base defence instead of being able to a-move from the get-go. Some of these modifications are just number tweaks, e.g. reducing the player's starting forces in map 3 or increasing the presence of Zerg in maps 1 and 2, but if you really want it to offer a challenge I would suggest having scripted drop attacks and using bullies or other, more complex AI scripting in Galaxy to increase the potency of their attack waves. You can look at Wings of Liberty's Tosh mission for a (very limited) example of bullies in action if nobody on your team is familiar with them.

As for a closer, I really think you guys ought to find someone to revoice the supporting Protoss characters. Nannonth/Taeradun's modulation is abysmal and the delivery of Khorun and Nurokh's lines are really, really bad. You're much better off rewriting some of their lines to be more intelligent and finding someone to recast their dialogue. It would make them infinitely more compelling. I also know that you guys plan on working on a lot of the points I've mentioned and that this is a beta and will be improved over time, but I still wanted to get my feedback out so you know where I stand. Otherwise, good luck, have fun, and I'll be following this thread to see how your project develops.

Thank you for your feedback! We very much appreciate the time and thought you put into your review.

First comment: it looks to me like you're playing an older version of the campaign. That's easy to do, since we're pushing patches regularly. A more recent release should address many of the technical issues.

I haven't gotten to watch all of your video yet, but I will soon and make tickets in our tracker from your feedback. I'll offer my usual caveat here that we almost certainly won't fix everything you mention; even some things we agree with will likely be sacrificed in the interest of forward motion on the project.

I do want to address your overall feedback. Re-writing and voicing the campaigns is definitely out of scope for this project. On a philosophical level, we think of this as an art exhibit: to change the original work seems very disrespectful. There are certainly shortcomings, considering that all of the voices in Psionic Storm were done by the same person and considering how storytelling has evolved since the 90s, but we consider those part of the essential character of the work. [N.B., we did cut a few lines: a couple plot holes and one rape joke.]

From a logistics standpoint, it would also be...kind of insane. There's about 20,000 words of recorded dialogue between the first two episodes, not to mention all of the unit sounds. To re-write and re-record everything would take an incredible amount of time that we'd rather focus on our core mission.

As we iterate over the campaign, we're tightening up levels and enhancing the gameplay where we can. If you have suggestions for that or want to contribute to the project in any other way, please let me know!

Thanks,

Adrian
(Lucid Iguana)

Rewriting even a small portion of the lines or specific characters would improve the feel of the campaign, but I understand what you mean when you say you want to treat it like an art exhibit. I don't know how you can say that and then cut out other lines of dialogue, but it's your project, not mine.

I don't do much work in SC2. All of my campaign projects that I'm currently undertaking are in Brood War. I'm not sure how much help I'd be to you guys, nor do I necessarily have the time to lend a hand in the first place, but I'll offer feedback as you guys update the campaign at the very least.

@older version, I downloaded this yesterday, but I probably should have checked back for any updates.

My apologies—I meant to respond and then forgot to. We definitely appreciate your feedback. Be on the lookout soon for the alpha version of episode 2!

Speaking of which, as of today, we've got a beta of Episode 2 online, too! Check it out and let us know what you think.

Thought I should mention that there's a very solid version of episode 2 now.

Download the zip file containing maps and the mod at http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/antioch-chronicles-remastered/files/ . Place the Antioch Remastered directory in your StarCraft 2/Maps folder. Place AntiochRemastered.SC2Mod in your mods directory.

Download the StarCraft: Mass Recall mod (http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/starcraft-mass-recall/files/61-scmrmod-v5-4/) and place it in your mods folder.