Hey everyone.

First thing, sorry if this is out of place; I've seen an UMS showcase forum and a mod discussion forum, but nothing related to campaigns... so I'm advertising it here. My project is a collection of UMS files using their own executable file, so in some ways it fits into both UMS and modding. Please move this thread if it belongs somewhere else, anyway.

On to the project itself.



Story:

Aeon of the Hawk takes you to the distant fringe world of Athlys III; formerly a backwater colony of the Terran Confederacy, Athlys III declared its independence and assumed a neutral position among the Terran worlds. The numerous corporations, owners of research & development facilities and production centers on the planet rule it with no goals other than preserving their wealth and expanding their market. The provisional government is nearly absent and lacks the powers necessary to challenge these companies.

This environment is of interest to the powerful nations of the Koprulu Sector, who are eager to explore regions such as the Athlys system and gain footholds on them. The Terran Dominion, The Umojan Protectorate and the Kel-Morian Combine, factions with bitter convivence, sent their ambassadors to fringe worlds such as Athlys III to hire the services of the greedy, yet effective corporations to support their economies and war machines.

A planet far from the influence of the major powers; a nation without a law, ruled by dog-eat-dog rules; a world home to countless mercenaries. Would there be a more fitting place to start a war where much may be at stake?

An individual known as The Hawk seeks to find out.



Features:
- 11 playable maps full of minigames and a variety of missions, all of which require micromanagement;
- an intricate plot full of twists and unexpected events, only loosely connected to Blizzard's events;
- new doodads for Badlands, Space and Desert;
- lots and lots of event music;
- custom unit portraits and voices for hero units, plus some custom models for old units;
- secret and optional missions;



Screenshots:

Now it starts to get warmer.

Fast-paced Vulture chase.




Don't get run over.



1% of the time you'll not resort to direct violence.




A few new doodads(tables):




Strange entities haunt one of the main characters:




Two of the new doodads - backdrop planet and asteroid:




An unique space battle: you may enter the hangar of your mothership and repair at your discretion.



The forementioned starship. When leaving the hangar, your starfighters will appear next to the ship's location.




To skip the boredom of base-building maps, there are alternative tactics and ways to acquire resources. One of them is through a supply ship that travels back and forth waypoints.




You may also loot remains of enemy buildings.




An evil minigame: can you blind 10 moving science vessels so your troops can sneak through? 8)




Some random carnage to satisfy the bloodlust of the more psychotic players.




A mission based around the Irradiate skill...




... and another based on the EMP skill.




A gloomy infested complex: one of the climaxes of the campaign.




Notes:

This is one of the few campaigns that is aimed toward veterans, since I've had my quota of Bnet/WCG melee games myself in the past(until I started to get owned thoroughly and gave up).

Those who are looking for a good storyline(especially after map 3), charismatic characters and some challenge will probably enjoy it. The previous release of some of the maps a few years ago got some great feedback here on Staredit.net.

If you're still reading... *drum roll* here are the download links.

Executable file: unfortunately it needs Brood War patch 1.10 due to some custom hero abilities. The files for both 1.10 and 1.15-A are contained in the zip. Just unzip the 1.10 files in your SC folder and have fun. If you're not feeling safe, backup staredit.exe, starcraft.exe, patch_rt.mpq and storm.dll(those are the only files changed by patches). Run the executable, select Play Custom -> Use Map Settings and have fun.

http://staff.samods.org/metathrom/aeonse/Exe.zip



The maps. Some of the episodes are zipped because they include an addon cutscene map. Download and unzip the .zip ones in a folder under your Starcraft/Maps directory.
http://staff.samods.org/metathrom/aeonse/Hawk-01.scx
http://staff.samods.org/metathrom/aeonse/Hawk-02.scx
http://staff.samods.org/metathrom/aeonse/Hawk-03.zip
http://staff.samods.org/metathrom/aeonse/Hawk-04.scx
http://staff.samods.org/metathrom/aeonse/Hawk-05.scx
http://staff.samods.org/metathrom/aeonse/Hawk-06.scx
http://staff.samods.org/metathrom/aeonse/Hawk-07.scx
http://staff.samods.org/metathrom/aeonse/Hawk-08.scx
http://staff.samods.org/metathrom/aeonse/Hawk-09.zip
http://staff.samods.org/metathrom/aeonse/Hawk-10.zip

Alternatively, you may download the entire campaign here:

http://sc.campaigncreations.org/aeon/files/Aeon.zip


Credits:
Metathrom (me): Staredit & SCMDraft work, testing, sound editing, doodad work
Campaign Creations and Samods: hosting
Robddav: Memgraft work
Taeradun: Doodad work, splash screens, glue screens
Joel Steudler: Title screen
RsRioter, Prominency, Ling-Mac: beta testers
Infoceptor: new unit graphics


Remixed music by:
- JigginJonT Donkey Kong West Coast Island Theme (Donkey Kong Country);
- Scott Peeples - Chrono Trigger Requiem for a Green Revolution;
- BrainCells – The Path To Hell – Lake of Fire (Axelay);
- MazeDude – Final Fantasy 4 Surface of the Moon;
- Children of the Monkey Machine – Norfair Frailty Waiting (Super Metroid);
- Danny B – The Galaxy is At Peace (Super Metroid);
- Dhsu – Super Mario World Koopa vs Kefka.
- All remixes available on www.ocremix.org

Enjoy!

This would definitely be classified as a Mod. Any maps that are made to support the mod, are still a part of that mod since their designed to run together.

Also, I would like to say that it looks rather interesting and I think I see a few images that you created from scratch. It looks like you put alot of work into it and I will play it when I get the opportunity.

It looks very nice. I like the idea of having to do mini-games in a campaign that actually have a purpose to the game itself. I'll try it out when the time comes.

nice, just tried the first level, though I died and saved at the wrong point (when i was about to die), so it would be better if you made that first cinematic part as a separate map. very good job though
btw what modding programs did you use? 1.10 is ancient. O.o
those are some awesome sounds

Impressive

Hmm yeah it could've been better but I think the "victory" and "briefing" screens coming after the initial objectives would be somewhat anti-climatic, wouldn't it?

I suggest that you save everytime you get the "Objectives" message updated, anyway. One of these days I was planning a Warcraft 3 campaign and died horribly after 40 minutes playing a map without saving... argh. It can be annoying, but it's better to save somewhat regularly than to lose all the progress.

I used good old(and by old I mean old) Stargraft to customize some hero abilities. I tried to convert it to 1.15 and failed miserably. Taeradun tried as well and still couldn't do it either. Well, we could try again soon anyway, I'll let you guys know if it's updated.

The maps are what are being showcased. Not the mod. It's as simple as that.

Dude, you put a lot effort into this, and you made a great work both with terrain and modding, not to mention your map making skills.

But...

1. The diffucult level is to high. I know you made the map and you know about everything, but don't think others share the same knowledge.
2. Reduce spawns, they're just insane, and some places works just as a f*** surprise. They just came out of nowhere.
3. In one of your maps you had to protect a large ship(one of the last levels 10b ? not sure) and Fleetwood was with you on that one. I flew the ship arround somewhere and came into beacons on the sea. Suddenly I got a message that some kind of cruiser is about to crash into it and just when I finished reading it(I read pretty fast, trust me) I got the message that the ship blew into dust and that the game is over.
4. I got stuck in the space-instalation level where you face the zerg. How do I open the south doors after opening the first one and getting to the elec. fuse?

I know you wanted to push the game to the limit and make it real - a real assault, lot's of units, hordes, armies, but from my point of view (as mentioned before) your spawns are insane. So insane that sometimes I even don't know wheather I should build up or keep an eye on my micro to survive without getting new units. Your city levels look so real that I even had problems recognising what game I am plaing . The music is also awesome. It really fits the game. There was even one that sound like some kind of march which reminds me of C&C: Red Alert . Your mod will be my fauvorite one if you correct thoose things.

Granted, I didn't play many SC campaigns, but it looks awesome.

Very fun, and very difficult. Best SC Campaign I've ever played.

Looks really interesting, I'll test it tomorrow when its done downloading and edit in what I think.

Thanks for your feedback. Let me address it.

1 and 2: Yeah, it might be difficult and I'm the campaign maker, so I blame the beta testers for not informing me it was too difficult. About the spawns, I believe you're refering to map 9b(the huge assault) and maybe 10(the squad attack on the installation)?
3- Sure, I'll look into it. Alternatively, I might change it so that when the enemy warship kamikazes on your cruiser, it just sets your hp/shields to 1 percent around the cruiser area so that you might still heal it with Fleetwood or something.
4- Assuming it's directly after the first door, check the pattern of the small squares on the ground (in the very first room, notice the places with "Code Encrypters" there). The computer monitor says these encrypters are used to emulate the presence of personnel in the area. So, go to the second room, notice the places with the same ground patterns(silver squares and dark crosss) and, since the encrypters are meant to emulate the presence of actual people... go and put an unit where each encrypter was in the first room. Open Sesame.

Thanks for all your comments, the music in the final battle is indeed Hell March from Red Alert.

I'm considering releasing an easier version, as well as writing a tutorial for it. What do you think? Any other maps with insanely hard stuff? I think the maps from 1-6 are somewhat easier than the rest, but since I'm the mapmaker, I really can't say.

Also, be sure to play my other campaign, The Flame Knives, here: www.samods.org/sc/flameknives It is an epic, more fantasy-ish sister campaign to Aeon, and it's been featured on PC Gamer magazine(August 2007, along with the older version of AotH) in a list of best mods/campaigns for SC.

Hello!

Yes, I think you should release an easier version.

I made many maps in my SC career, and the mistake I did everytime(it's unavoidable) is that the maps where pretty easy to me, since every surprise was obvious, while other players moved their units right into my traps, or ran right into the enemy rocket and so on. Now this is a tip for every map maker: test the map with many different testers, so you get a basic idea what's going on.

One of my remade maps called Infiltration gives each player 1 ghost with 2 hp. All damage values are low, which means that 2-4 shots and you're a dead meat bag . I knew how to complete the map without co-operation, so made it automaticly harder thinking:" Nah, they will be more, they'll make it somehow". While in fact - they didn't. On this example I saw how dangerous it was to make the map only from your own point of view. You need to give players time to read and think of how to react. Not to long and definetly not too short. The infiltation map was no mass map. You commanded one unit, the enemies guards where in few numbers, but you had to think how to get throught this - hiding behind trees, running and taking cover was the only way you could do it. I think you could focus a bit on removing the numbers but increasing the strenght. But this advice is also dangerous. Therefore - ballance is the key to every maps success .

Lack of ballance in your map:
-As someone mentioned - it's not even worth to go for the first armory in the first level. There are many simmilar situations in your maps.
-The worst imballance I've seen is the 0 or 1 system when it comes to battles. If you are supposed to attack something, take over a specific location you get very few units(which is good and makes everything more esthetic) but I've seen 2-4 and even 8 deployed tanks in one (how to say it?) "screen view". Such situations make the player playing the map for the first time irritated(not to say irradiated ). Never keep too many tanks in one place, it really sucks .

Thoose spawns I told you about ...
Now I remember it clearly.

It's pointless to show the player where the evil buddies comes from. For example. The first map where you can hire mercs for 500/10 min/gas made me think that you lack one of the many sense required in map making . Why? Because I hired a team of mercs that blew up before I even saw how they looked in-game, cause that's exactly the computers spawn location!

The sollution is pretty obvious. Because there's a road leading to the base, you might want your mercs to show up in your base. The other option could be makins a special alley for them to come. But this is not the last thing I'm going to say about it . If you want to keep things how they are, make the road longer (right bottom where the cpu spawns and you) and create a location at the enterance. Order all human players to move away from that locations, while the computer spawns in the fog of war behind your eyes - this helps to avoid sudden teleportations .

I hope you're not going to punch me for writing all this.

Punch? I'm going after you with a Gauss Rifle.

No, not really. Thanks for your feedback.

Yeah, balance is something hard to achieve and definitely isn't a job a single person can do alone(that's why I still keep my beta testers for not informing me of anything). As you know, as a mapmaker, as you test your maps over and over again, even the toughest situation gets easy for you to beat, since you're so used to them. That also makes you less qualified to judge the balance of the map, and that's what beta testers are for.

About the armory thing, don't you think 2 Vultures might be a good reinforcement? That's 6 extra mines to help deal with the robots coming after you. I could change it and make it 2 Goliaths or even, say, a Tank and a Goli if people think it's needed, though.

About the mercs dying at their spawning location, I still don't picture it - what map is it? You don't hire mercs in the first map, only in the second... or hmm, maybe you mean the third map where there's a civilian "hirer" dude in a pub? If so yeah, I can now see the problem - they should be moved to the player's base, indeed, or at least to a safe alley. Thanks for the suggestion.

I love campaigns, but the additions of new doodads and stuff prevents me from downloading.

yes, that mission is the one I mentioned. I wrote that the first mission where you're able to hire .

Yeah, you're able to hire some in a pub on map 2(totally optional though), that's why I was confused and stuff.

What did you think of the characters and plot?

Both characters and the story line were perfect. I really liked the contrast between each individual. The plot itself had some unexpected events which is definetly good. Fleetwoods portrait is just excellent. He sure looks like a soldier. Don't know what else I could say about it since I'm not good in going into details if you mean scenarios, though I really feel the plot.

I've been working on my own campaign since 2005, but I often abbandoned it due to other maps I'm making and due to the fact, that I have no idea how to add new units(models, buttons). This probably goes round firegraft, but still - no clue.

Think we could work together on this one? I know I didn't reveal any details, but I swear, this is gonna be high quality map making .

Argh.. I want to play it, but it crashes my starcraft.

Blender, read the readme file. Unzip the 1.10 file and put all the files into your main SC folder.