7 maps. Extremely varied ranging from tower defense to stealth and more
High quality terrain and cinematics, supported by many custom assets
Playable in singleplayer or two-player co-operative mode on four difficulty levels
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Welcome to the beta test of Shadow of the Xel'Naga.
The purpose of this test is to gather as much feedback as possible to create a perfect campaign. This feedback can be about gameplay, difficulty, misunderstandings, bugs, audio/visual problems or anything else you'd like to tell me.
private message: sc2mapster.com, instarcraft.de, or hiveworkshop.com (nickname OutsiderXE)
If you changed the difficulty tell me which one you played the map on.
I'll send you each map link based on the feedback you provided for the previous map (Don't worry, I don't expect you to fill whole pages but 2-3 things would be nice. If you can't find anything wrong then at least write what you liked). the first map is free-to-play for everyone: http://www.outsiderxe.campaigncreations.org/starcraft/SotX01.rar
While I work on fixing the multiplayer your test focuses on the singleplayer part. Don't upload the map on battle.net. Further instructions in the info.txt that comes with the map.
If you have no desire to send feedback or play an incomplete map you might as well wait for the final release. The campaign should be out in late November/early December.
Great news! Today I got a laptop and just for fun I played chapter 2 of my campaign in multiplayer co-op mode. Thinking I wouldn't even get past the battle.net lobby thanks to numerous bugs I'd probably encounter I actually managed to play through the entire map with only a few bugs to be killed. This news is even better considering that chapter 2 is one of the most complicated maps when it comes to co-op.
I'll start thorough multiplayer testing as soon as I'm finished with the private single player tests. If things go well my multiplayer tests will be finished before the release of LotV. I plan to publish the campaign on the arcade 1-2 weeks after the release of LotV. All maps will still be flagged as "open beta" with a couple of warning dialogs/messages, and I'll still update the campaign for a couple of weeks, but in general you'll already get to play the entire thing then.
I'm happy to announce that I've finished all the internal multiplayer tests. Under normal circumstances I would release the campaign to the public within the next 1-3 days, but since LotV is coming I'll hold it back to see what things from LotV I can add (Reaver, Dragoon, some UI stuff etc.) and release it in the next 2-3 weeks instead.
Currently in the process of replacing some Mass Recall data and assets with LotV data and assets. Balancing (abilities, unit stats) should stay mostly the same, but the look and sound will be more like LotV than Brood War. Before you start screaming (omg bw looks and sounds so much better!) keep in mind that most of that old BW stuff is used by the AI. The player only gets acces to a full terran tech-tree in the last mission.
On my list to be replaced: Dragoon, Dark Archon, Reaver, Arbiter, Shield Battery and maybe others
All BW units/buildings that don't exist in LotV will remain as in SCMR: e.g. Protoss Shuttle, Arbiter Tribunal
Terran BW sound files will be removed
Models/sound from units that aren't used anyway will b removed: e.g. Corsair, Valkyrie, numerous icons
Music and some sound files were already removed
Will keep SCMR look/sound: Carrier, most of the terran-tech tree and maybe others
If things go well campaign size could be reduced from 58MB to under 20MB.
One week ago I made a note to myself to stop fiddling with core mechanics, just fix everything and release it and here I am making big changes to chapter 7 :P
It's probably hard for you to understand without playing experience but here I go anyway:
It used to be that both players could call small nuclear strikes at any time anywhere on the battlefield. Now only one player can do this and only after building a Science Facility. I added 5 more abilities to the players starting buildings: Calldown MULE, Calldown Supply, Scanner Sweep, Calldown Elite Goliaths, and, my favourite, Calldown Norad III :) Each players gets 3 of these abilities (you get all 6 if you play solo).
Furthermore I made some changes to the level design, as the player in the east now has easier access to an expansion.
I also changed the main objective from "Kill special buildings X and Y" to "Kill all Protoss Nexuses and Zerg Main Buildings"
I implemented a gimmick to the level I call "Supercharge". For each enemy building you destroy all units and building of that race get a 5% life/shield buff. This effect can be stacked 20 times (100% means twice as much life/shields). The effect cools down when an enemy building hasn't been destroyed for more than 1 minute. What I hope to achieve is that the players don't just rush in and kill everything from one enemy and instead alternate between attacking protoss and zerg bases. What I'm afraid is that it will lead to more passive play and turtling so I still need to fine-tune and maybe change this gimmick.
Oh and I also added some LotV weather effects to make this map more epic :P
---
I'll be able to say more about a release date as soon as I'm happy with Chapter 7. My guess is in 2-3 days.
I found some interesting before and after pics of chapter 3 I made a month or so ago. I added a bit more space so it's not as linear and I also replaced the manmade textures and cliffs with natural stuff. There were also some changes to the level design, especially in the south west.
----
The long journey is coming to an end. Over the past two months I have been revamping all aspects of the campaign. I've fixed bugs, added new features, improved the level design, cinematics, balance, added features from the recently released Legacy of the Void, and much more.
I've also been getting very good feedback from my testers. All of them have earned their spot in the credits that appear at the end of the campaign.
Despite the mere 7 maps this is the biggest mod-project I have ever created. The campaign features a story based on the novel Shadow of the Xel'Naga by Gabriel Mesta. It features single-player as well as a two player co-op mode. Each map has unique gameplay with open-world action, puzzles, MOBA gameplay, Tower Defense, stealth mechanics, dungeon crawler, and base-building.
All maps will be published on November 27th*, and can be played by everyone, on the free Battle.net Arcade.
I am still testing all maps and the date can be pushed back if I find game-breaking bugs.
Been going through the campaign with a friend. There's barely any bugs left (we can find), so it's mostly about polishing.
Chapter 5 needs a lot of communication so I came up with the idea to place Markers on the map. Should help with telling your ally where you want him to use his abilities. See attached screenshot for this epic new ability, coming to you this friday!!
Been busy working on the 1.2 update which will include:
- German localization (if you play SC2 in german)
- New item system for mission 3
- Improved AI and vision cones for mission 5
- Over 170 additional changes to gameplay/bugfixing for all missions
If things go as planned the update will go live in less than a week
What about a front page news on mapster? I remember getting one when the project was first announced, but never anything after that, not even on release?
After more than 5 years this campaign has finally arrived in the map feedback section and is ready for public testing :)
If you need formal information about this campaign see here (http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/sotx/) and here (http://www.outsiderxe.campaigncreations.org/sotx.php)
The features in short:
-----Welcome to the beta test of Shadow of the Xel'Naga.
The purpose of this test is to gather as much feedback as possible to create a perfect campaign. This feedback can be about gameplay, difficulty, misunderstandings, bugs, audio/visual problems or anything else you'd like to tell me.
You can send feedback via:
If you changed the difficulty tell me which one you played the map on.
I'll send you each map link based on the feedback you provided for the previous map (Don't worry, I don't expect you to fill whole pages but 2-3 things would be nice. If you can't find anything wrong then at least write what you liked). the first map is free-to-play for everyone: http://www.outsiderxe.campaigncreations.org/starcraft/SotX01.rar
While I work on fixing the multiplayer your test focuses on the singleplayer part. Don't upload the map on battle.net. Further instructions in the info.txt that comes with the map.
If you have no desire to send feedback or play an incomplete map you might as well wait for the final release. The campaign should be out in late November/early December.
Have fun! (If you don't, tell me why!)
OutsiderXE
outsiderxe.blogspot.com
excited!
Great news! Today I got a laptop and just for fun I played chapter 2 of my campaign in multiplayer co-op mode. Thinking I wouldn't even get past the battle.net lobby thanks to numerous bugs I'd probably encounter I actually managed to play through the entire map with only a few bugs to be killed. This news is even better considering that chapter 2 is one of the most complicated maps when it comes to co-op.
I'll start thorough multiplayer testing as soon as I'm finished with the private single player tests. If things go well my multiplayer tests will be finished before the release of LotV. I plan to publish the campaign on the arcade 1-2 weeks after the release of LotV. All maps will still be flagged as "open beta" with a couple of warning dialogs/messages, and I'll still update the campaign for a couple of weeks, but in general you'll already get to play the entire thing then.
I'm happy to announce that I've finished all the internal multiplayer tests. Under normal circumstances I would release the campaign to the public within the next 1-3 days, but since LotV is coming I'll hold it back to see what things from LotV I can add (Reaver, Dragoon, some UI stuff etc.) and release it in the next 2-3 weeks instead.
Good news! I finished the last mission of this campaign and it was really fun. Can't wait for the release. Congratulations for making this campaign!!!
Currently in the process of replacing some Mass Recall data and assets with LotV data and assets. Balancing (abilities, unit stats) should stay mostly the same, but the look and sound will be more like LotV than Brood War. Before you start screaming (omg bw looks and sounds so much better!) keep in mind that most of that old BW stuff is used by the AI. The player only gets acces to a full terran tech-tree in the last mission.
If things go well campaign size could be reduced from 58MB to under 20MB.
One week ago I made a note to myself to stop fiddling with core mechanics, just fix everything and release it and here I am making big changes to chapter 7 :P
It's probably hard for you to understand without playing experience but here I go anyway:
It used to be that both players could call small nuclear strikes at any time anywhere on the battlefield. Now only one player can do this and only after building a Science Facility. I added 5 more abilities to the players starting buildings: Calldown MULE, Calldown Supply, Scanner Sweep, Calldown Elite Goliaths, and, my favourite, Calldown Norad III :) Each players gets 3 of these abilities (you get all 6 if you play solo).
Furthermore I made some changes to the level design, as the player in the east now has easier access to an expansion.
I also changed the main objective from "Kill special buildings X and Y" to "Kill all Protoss Nexuses and Zerg Main Buildings"
I implemented a gimmick to the level I call "Supercharge". For each enemy building you destroy all units and building of that race get a 5% life/shield buff. This effect can be stacked 20 times (100% means twice as much life/shields). The effect cools down when an enemy building hasn't been destroyed for more than 1 minute. What I hope to achieve is that the players don't just rush in and kill everything from one enemy and instead alternate between attacking protoss and zerg bases. What I'm afraid is that it will lead to more passive play and turtling so I still need to fine-tune and maybe change this gimmick.
Oh and I also added some LotV weather effects to make this map more epic :P
---
I'll be able to say more about a release date as soon as I'm happy with Chapter 7. My guess is in 2-3 days.
I found some interesting before and after pics of chapter 3 I made a month or so ago. I added a bit more space so it's not as linear and I also replaced the manmade textures and cliffs with natural stuff. There were also some changes to the level design, especially in the south west.
----The long journey is coming to an end. Over the past two months I have been revamping all aspects of the campaign. I've fixed bugs, added new features, improved the level design, cinematics, balance, added features from the recently released Legacy of the Void, and much more.
I've also been getting very good feedback from my testers. All of them have earned their spot in the credits that appear at the end of the campaign.
Despite the mere 7 maps this is the biggest mod-project I have ever created. The campaign features a story based on the novel Shadow of the Xel'Naga by Gabriel Mesta. It features single-player as well as a two player co-op mode. Each map has unique gameplay with open-world action, puzzles, MOBA gameplay, Tower Defense, stealth mechanics, dungeon crawler, and base-building.
All maps will be published on November 27th*, and can be played by everyone, on the free Battle.net Arcade.
Been going through the campaign with a friend. There's barely any bugs left (we can find), so it's mostly about polishing.
Chapter 5 needs a lot of communication so I came up with the idea to place Markers on the map. Should help with telling your ally where you want him to use his abilities. See attached screenshot for this epic new ability, coming to you this friday!!
I promoted your maps on a discussion on the new Co-op map that is coming out on the main sc2 site! Loving the campaign!!
Thank you! Do you have a link for me?
Been busy working on the 1.2 update which will include:
- German localization (if you play SC2 in german)
- New item system for mission 3
- Improved AI and vision cones for mission 5
- Over 170 additional changes to gameplay/bugfixing for all missions
If things go as planned the update will go live in less than a week
I promoted this on TL's single player campaign forum. No responses, but its got like 700 views! :)
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/single-player/510504-coop-campaign-shadow-of-the-xelnaga
That's cool. thank you. i do plan on making a new thread on reddit when 1.2 is out.
The update is out now. You can find the full list of changes here: http://outsiderxe.blogspot.de/2016/06/shadow-of-xelnaga-12-now-available-in.html
What about a front page news on mapster? I remember getting one when the project was first announced, but never anything after that, not even on release?
Any info can be found here: http://www.outsiderxe.campaigncreations.org/sotx.php
Walkthrough by deltron and Jayborino
You need to pm Sixen or Mozared to get your project listed on the front page. Do so!! It hasn't been updated since mid-May.