I just finished playing this, I have to say it is quite refreshing to play a good quality campaign like this after playing the jumpstart campaigns. I mean JumpStart clearly has the talent to make a good campaign, he's just so damn lazy, especially with spelling and triggers.
Anyway, I was quite surprised to see you took the gameplay design in a new direction instead of your usual frugal design where every single bit of vespene and mineral counts. I think the change worked out for the better even if the difficulty became lower than usual in the first 4 missions. The fifth and the sixth missions had your trademark veteran difficulty though, with the fifth mission gaining difficulty through the use of an insane protoss AI and the sixth mission basically having the gameplay that you intended (but failed to have) for mission 5 of Tales of Halcyon. I have to say, using jenkins to slowly wittle down the zerg and open passages was a lot of fun. I really think the design of mission 6 shows how much you've learned about gameplay, trigger, and map design since the release of your first campaign back in 2015.
Unfortunately, the campaign isn't without flaws, namely The writing in mission 4 and the gameplay in mission 5. The writing for mission 4 is pretty problematic with grammar mistakes all over the place and a mission briefing that tries but fails to connect to Tales of Halcyon in a way that the player can understand. In fact, it wasn't until I opened up my old save files for tales of halcyon and read the mission briefing for some of the missions in Tales of Halcyon that I finally understood what you were trying to convey to the player in mission 4. Here's an improved mission briefing for you to use:
Briefing("Player 2"){
Show Portrait("Galivan", 0);
Show Portrait("Armiras", 3);
Wait(750);
Display Speaking Portrait(0, 8000);
Play WAV("staredit\\wav\\ComBeep0.wav", 403);
Text Message("GALIVAN\r\n\r\nPraetor Armiras, we are on our way to Artesia Prime to rescue you. Tell me, how exactly did you end up there?", 8000);
Wait(9000);
Display Speaking Portrait(3, 14500);
Text Message("ARMIRAS\r\n\r\nWe were in pursuit of a Terran criminal named Alan Schezar. We almost reached him but he unleashed an electro-magnetic pulse that disabled our ships. As a result, we crash-landed on this planet.", 14500);
Wait(15500);
Display Speaking Portrait(0, 21000);
Text Message("GALIVAN\r\n\r\nSchezar? You know of him? He is a terran who invaded Aiur. Our brethren were able defeat his forces though. However, soon afterward the Zerg discovered Aiur as well and invaded it. Indeed, as soon as we rescue you we must return to Aiur to help our people. But, Armiras, I see that there are some humans with you.", 21000);
Wait(13500);
Show Portrait("Marcus Jenkins", 2);
Wait(8500);
Display Speaking Portrait(2, 22000);
Play WAV("staredit\\wav\\ComBeep0.wav", 403);
Text Message("JENKINS\r\n\r\nGreetings, my name is Marcus Jenkins. Immediately after the Battle of Arkham, during which Schezar narrowly escaped, I was ordered to assist Armiras and a few other Delta Squadron members. To further assist him, we were given several tactical nuclear warheads that--", 22000);
Wait(22500);
Display Speaking Portrait(0, 22000);
Text Message("GALIVAN\r\n\r\nI have heard about these nuclear devices, human. Undoubtedly, your crude technology has allowed you to develop some truly outstanding weapons. However, given the kind of attitude that your species shows, it won't take long before your people decide to use them to exterminate each other.", 22000);
Wait(23800);
Display Speaking Portrait(2, 32000);
Text Message("JENKINS\r\n\r\n...Anyway. The warheads were lost in the crash. We tried to recover them, but the Dominion soldiers were quicker than us, and handed the warheads over to the local Governor, Vincent Garibaldi. Paranoid, sadistic and sycophant, Garibaldi is the last man to be given access to nuclear weapons. Indeed, he is not only one of Mengsk's most devote goose steppers, in some ways he is even worse than him, considering how much oppressive his rule over this world is.", 32000);
Wait(33000);
Display Speaking Portrait(2, 26000);
Text Message("You said that Schezar has been defeated, so technically my original mission is complete. However, the Confederacy is no more. Me and my comrades have no place to go, and we would gladly follow you wherever you are going, with your permission of course. However, we need to recover the stolen warheads since they are still under my responsibility. This will likely require eliminating Garibaldi who probably won't be missed by anyone.", 26000);
Wait(27000);
Display Speaking Portrait(3, 24000);
Text Message("ARMIRAS\r\n\r\nGalivan, you must approach Artesia Prime with caution. Guarding this planet's orbit is a powerful defense system the Terrans refer to as the Big Gun. This weapon can detect and destroy any ship that does not belong to the Dominion, so you should hide behind one of the moons of Artesia Prime until we manage to disable it.", 24000);
Wait(25000);
Display Speaking Portrait(0, 13000);
Text Message("GALIVAN\r\n\r\nUnderstood. We shall follow your advice, Armiras, but be quick: we must reach Aiur as soon as possible and join our brethren in the war against the Zerg.", 13000);
Wait(14000);
Hide Portrait(0);
Wait(500);
Display Speaking Portrait(3, 15000);
Text Message("ARMIRAS\r\n\r\nI cannot believe that we finally have a chance to leave this distressing, polluted world. However, making our way through the Dominion forces patrolling the city shall not be an easy task.", 15000);
Wait(16000);
Display Speaking Portrait(2, 20000);
Text Message("JENKINS\r\n\r\nI couldn't agree more, old friend. For this purpose, I've arranged a secret meeting with a representative of the clandestine syndicate of the Antigan minority. They are mostly miners, so they can't give us military assistance, but I'm sure they can help us in other ways...", 20000);
Wait(21000);
Hide Portrait(2);
Hide Portrait(3);
Text Message("\r\n\r\n\x013End of Briefing.", 5000);
There are lots of grammar mistakes in the mission itself besides the briefing but it's hard for me to search for and show the mistakes on a forum
As for mission 5, the gameplay suffers a bit. I understand you tried to use insane AI balanced out with zerg opponents that will attack the AI but in the end the result is a mission that can only be won via a suicidal rush to the arbiter tribunal with as many scouts as the supply limit allows and done as fast as possible... or the player has to cheese the mission by sending the two scouts to attack the insane protoss AI, drawing the red protoss away from the base and then dropping the probes and other units back in the same base that was being attack earlier and making the base there. That way an army can be built there to eventually attack and destroy the red protoss and the insane protoss AI nexus that they are guarding. If you're going to use insane AI you have to balance it out with the removal of abilities, such as psionic storm or the removal of arbiters or something.
Still, despite these two minor problems the campaign was very enjoyable and a definite recommendation for anyone. It scores 83%, making this your highest-rated campaign and the highest-rated non-modded starcraft campaign ever made by anyone. Congratulations!
fittingly, this is the last remaining unmodded campaign left on my list. There are just 7 more campaigns left to go before I am done with starcraft for good and they're all modded.
I don't know why you're against saving maps as .scx. It doesn't make any difference for the actual gameplay. You're only hurting your campaign by adding pointless restrictions that will deter people from playing it.
Remember how you said everyone has brood war? Well, Andrea Rosa is the Lone exception. He only had Starcraft. As such, it is very difficult for him to test SCX maps. Still. You have a point. Andrea Rosa, It is possible to use SCMDraft to disable brood war units for manufacturing by the player and keep the map in SCM format. As long as no brood war units are placed on the map, it will work. You do not need to disable it for the enemy AI by the way, as long as you use a starcraft AI instead of a broodwar AI they won't make broodwar units (using a broodwar AI will of course disallow SCM format).
Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on May 25 2021, 4:55 pm by Zincoshine.
None.