Another update:
- Starcraft: Restoration has proven to be much better than expected. It remains to be seen if it can break the streak of non-recommendations that has been going on since the summer as it does have at least one serious problem. However, I'm feeling optimistic.
- The files for Wingman, Outsiders, Cold as Ice, and Migration have been updated to their latest versions. I could potentially improve the scores of these campaigns and maybe even give a recommendation, but I would need to know what has been fixed....

Edit: Green for Starcraft: restoration is off the table sadly, but a conditional recommendation is still possible....

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Feb 20 2022, 7:03 pm by Zincoshine.

Starcraft: Restoration was so damn close to eking out a conditional recommendation... and then this happened on the penultimate mission. What. The. FUCK.



The streak of non-recommendations continues...
This campaign is among the better ones made in 1998 though, at least as far as mapping and gameplay are concerned. In fact, as far as gameplay is concerned, only Antioch chronicles is better.

Restoration has been archived.

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Feb 21 2022, 3:05 pm by Zincoshine.

"Starcraft: Timeline" by JumpStart has been QA'd and archived. It actually got a conditional recommendation and is the first campaign reviewed since august that isn't red.
Just don't expect Timeline to be a world-class performance. It's got some rough edges and I'm not sure if the last mission is actually beatable.

Edit: SC adventures has been made blue and moved to the uncategorized section after I looked at the history of it's previous entry and remembered that this campaign actually scored highly in terms of map and gameplay. If that's all that's fixed then the impact is little since the primary problem with that campaign was the writing. I'll later implement it elsewhere when I restructure the listing.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 22 2022, 8:13 pm by Zincoshine.

I decide to take a look on some Web Directories (remember them? Before the Search Engine Era) and found some old stuff.

https://www.angelfire.com/games3/atomzeromaps/scmaps.html : 2 maps, created by AtomZero, first file from April 1st, 2001.

I checked the listing before and didn't find it campaign, I hope I'm not wrong.

Yep, I don't have it. I'll archive and play it right after I finish Broodwar reversed. It's clearly an unfinished campaign though which is unfortunate. I may just toss it in F tier instead of QAing it.

It's looking like Broodwar reversed is getting a recommendation by the way. It's really good so far.

Is this campaign an early example of map protection? I can't open any map neither with StarEdit nor SCMDraft. Furthermore, some maps include unused units: one of them is a Scout, when selected it shows a Covert Ops wireframe. Maybe a beta version of StarEdit was used?

I think it might be map protection. There are ways to bypass it but I have no intention of ever doing that.

Edit: hold on, the map with the scout, did you reach that map by completing the previous mission and getting taken there automatically? This is important because that map is actually corrupted and if it is actually connected to the campaign I need to fix my archive to compensate. I thought only the B version was used.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 26 2022, 8:50 am by Zincoshine.

I think if the maps are protected by some unused units(I remember that one of the scout unused things just crashes the map outright), UEDCommander might do the same for SCA maps - might be worth it asking him if he can open them, since he has a SCMDraft dependency that turns them into other units and "unprotects" the map.

No, I didn't play it, I simply ran some random maps to see what they looked like. Map design is very nice by 1998 standards.



I thought the same thing, but I also thought that these hidden units crash the game when they are selected, not at map start. Hence I was quite surprised when I was able to select the Scout and display the Covert Ops wireframe.



I'm definitely not curious up to THAT point.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 26 2022, 2:55 pm by Andrea Rosa.

There's an A and a B version, only the A version is corrupt. It's not protected by an unused unit, the hero unit is replaced by an unused unit (which makes the map unplayable since you can't complete your objective.

I think I will simply delete the A version, they seem to be otherwise identical and I don't think A is used anyway.

Yeah, the gameplay is even better. Very big surprise. However check out the starting base of the penultimate mission, it has one of the worst resource placements I've ever seen in a custom campaign. (I showed it in a screenshot)

I think I will take a closer look at this campaign, maybe I'll play a few maps and see how it goes. What I would like to say is that if the campaign is good overall, then it shouldn't be excessively penalized because of poor gas placement in one of the missions (this isn't really a gameplay breaking feature since the player can compensate with a lot of SCVs). Admittedly the author should have at least given the chance to build another Command Center near the Refinery, but still that does not seem a critical failure in my opinion.

As a side note, the more I delve into these maps, the more I have doubts about the true release date of this campaign, mainly because I have seen Issue Order triggers being used. These triggers were not available in 1998, since they made their debut in Brood War and, in the case of StarCraft, with patch 1.04: the original version of this campaign was probably released in 1998, but it has surely been updated later on (most likely in 2003 given the dates of the files).

there are other problems unfortunately. A full recommendation had already been ruled out before I got to that mission.

As for the release date, yeah, I think I'll change it to 2003. It's way too good to have been made in 1998 and your little discovery confirms it.

Aside from this, I've decided to QA the corruptions saga.

edit: Corruptions saga has been QA'd and archived now. Not recommended.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 26 2022, 10:30 pm by Zincoshine.

OK, Broodwar reversed has been reviewed and both starcraft and broodwar reversed have now been archived. It is the final unmodded campaign left on my list and I am very happy to say that it has received a full recommendation

Now only the final 7 remain. This group consists mostly of the last remnants of what used to be known as S tier along with Tachyon which I have resolved to find a way to fix. In addition, it contains the only two modded campaigns with no missing files that me and the others here were able to find over the past...9?... months. Those two will be used as palate cleansers for the S-tier campaigns. While I do expect unmodded campaigns to be found and made going forward, it is extremely unlikely that any more 1.16.1 modded campaigns will be found or made. There are none under construction and there hasn't been a single 1.16.1 modded campaign made since the start of 2018. This really is the beginning of the end....

First up, Templar campaign, the oldest modded campaign in the archive, made at a time when modding meant simply adding replacement folders into the starcraft folder to override game files (specifically sound files). I made a SEMPQ out of these sound files for the sake of ease of use.

edit: well, right off the bat I can already see that templar campaign is not likely to get a recommendation....

edit2: Well that was fast, templar campaign is EXTREMELY bad and effectively unplayable due to some of the worst mapping I've ever seen. Archived, and not recommended.

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Mar 1 2022, 8:27 pm by Zincoshine.

I have played the first few missions of Restoration, and yes, there are several problems that prevent it from getting a full recommendation, which is a shame because it is evident that a lot of work was put into these maps. A recurrent problem is the placement of resources, especially in mission 3, with several inaccessible mineral fields that cause a lot of craziness in our SCVs. There are other questionable decisions, like disabling the Armory in a scenario that desperately demands for it, or having to research Cloaking Field even though we start with 6 hero Wraiths which have such ability available by default.

Differently from Zincoshine, I was able to beat mission 2 without too much trouble, even though it took me some time. The map played quite smoothly (except maybe for the last segment in which you have to perform some stunts in order to bring the SCVs to the Science Vessel) but then things went terribly wrong when, upon beating the mission, I was brought to the faulty version of mission 3 (the one with the unused Scout unit). In view of this problem, deleting (1)Terran03.scm is not the solution, because this map is actually used by the triggers. The only workaround is to replace it with a copy of (1)Terran03b.scm, renaming it to (1)Terran03.scm.

I noticed those gameplay things you mentioned but they didn't have much of an effect on my evaluation actually. I just considered things like the missing Armoury to be a bit of an added challenge. What is most problematic is the writing actually. It has similar problems to StarCraft adventures.

I'll fix the file names and delete the faulty map.

Edit: aside from that, I'm going over huncraft at the moment. I'm surprised by how is inconsistent the plot turned out to be and how little modding there was despite the excellent presentation and campaign integration. I think it will still get a recommendation but the score will be lower than I had hoped.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 3 2022, 11:23 am by Zincoshine.

I've finished playing episode VII in Huncraft genocide. While it may have minor conflicts with the broodwar plot, a very illogical plot device, and some weird moments. This campaign has some of the best twists and subversion I've ever seen, putting this as a top contender for what I would call "plot interest". Just wow... I can't wait to play the rest of the campaign and find out what happens next.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 7 2022, 9:45 am by Zincoshine.

Hello, I just finished translated my campaign into English : Download link

Translation done by myself, so, I guess it's far from perfect.

I'll have a look at it when I finish going over the modded campaigns and CaHeK finishes doing his thing. I do wish someone fluent in english would proofread the writing as well though...

So, I put the last two days putting the French Version of "Chroniques de l'Alliance" (the remaster/v2) under the scrutiny of a spell checker, so, all the maps were updated.

What do you mean?