I thought I would share the names of the missions and the design for the Battle.net icons. Old version used to have violet text, a different font. and the label "SOTX" on each icon. I have also remade the loading screen but want to work on it a bit more.
After another break for my studies I've returned to work on Chapter 5. As I wrote it relies heavily on stealth and plays a bit like the old Commandos/Desperados games where you have to avoid the gaze of enemies, by getting past them or knocking them out. There will be no killing in this mission.
Gameplay is almost finished so I've started working on the terrain. Here you can see an area from different perspectives (yeah I know: editor screenshots suck and should be avoided, especially WIP).
I hope to be finished in 7-10 days. Chapters 6 and 7 are going to be really simple (and hopefully not take as long) because they'll mostly be based on existing gameplay ideas.
Chapter 5 is almost finished (need to finish the outro cinematic, add battle.net information and fix some more bugs) so I took some screenshots to add to my portfolio site: http://www.outsiderxe.campaigncreations.org/sotx05.php . Hope to be finished in 5-7 days.
I want chapter 6 to contain a lot of boss fights (like that Kerrigan-Zerus map) but the players should control a small force and no heroes.
Continued work on chapter 6 a couple of days ago. Will hopefully work on it until the end of February.
Planned features for Chapter 6:
Indoor mission with several corridors. Corridors will include the typical offensive/defensive situations you see in many indoor missions by Blizzard. Will also contain some light puzzle elements (e.g. step on beacons in the correct order)
Boss fight at the end of each corridor
Co-op gameplay for two players: Each player controls a bunch of standard units (marines, ghosts, firebats, medics)
Units gain experience, level up and automatically gain new abilities. At level 8 a unit can be promoted to a hero for additional stats and damage. Only one hero per unit-type can exist
Players are accompanied by an AI-controlled hero unit that works much like Raynor in HotS mission 2 (basic meatshield and attacker)
As with each map in the campaign, players can't really lose*. When all units die and the AI hero is incapacitated the corridor is reset. All enemy units are revived, traps are reset and the players' units start at the beginning of the corridor
When a player unit is killed it is replaced by a fresh unit that starts at level 1 at the beginning of a corridor
Four difficulty levels
To-do:
I am still very early in development. I have created some basic trigger and data concepts for 3,5 of the 5 bosses. The level design is 1% complete at best. Unit abilites and upgrades system are nearly complete. Follower AI is also working well. Haven't really nailed down the balance between loss of a unit and loss of a corridor (reset) yet. Still don't know how to handle losing to bosses and what to do with the follower AI at bosses (he probably will not take part, so I'll always have to make up an excuse for excluding him). Really want to include more optional objectives as chapter 5 didn't have any, but haven't thought of anything cool yet. Still miles away from working on the art and showing screenshots.
*No map in the campaign can be failed entirely. This made made mostly because of the lack of a save feature on Battle.net, and I have no plans to release the maps on a website (yet), to further promote the co-op feature. Also: Losing ISN'T fun. The fun is in the progress you make. BUT: I know some gamers don't like it and I am considering adding permanent losing at the highest difficulty level.
As each map is so different from one another, each map handles hero deaths and mission failures differently:
Chapter 1: (a bit like GTA): Heroes don't die. They become incapacitated for a while. A hero in this state can be awakened instantly by another hero. No mission progress is lost. Mission critical units (the vehicles) are revived at their starting location
Chapter 2: Point and Click adventure with almost no combat. Heroes can't really engage enemies unless it's sure they'll win. Their HP-regeneration is ultra fast. There is a boss fight. It will reset when all mission critical units die
Chapter 3: Tug of War: Heroes can be revived at the closest Shield Battery. No cost. Reviving takes a while
Chapter 4: Tower Defense: Enemy AI doesn't attack heroes. If all player towers are killed the area is restarted
Chapter 5: Stealth (Commandos): Map has no combat. Enemies pursue and "catch" player heroes. when a hero is caught he is instantly moved to the beginning of the area
Chapter 6: Units can die and are replaced with level 1 units after a while. If all units die (or moved too far away from the follower) and the follower is incapacitated the area (corridor) is reset
An area/corridor etc. usually consists of 5-15 minutes of play time. Usually not all progrss is lost. Gained experience, items or completed optional objectives are kept.
Again, this was done so people don't have to go through the annoying process of restoring a save game through a replay on Battle.net. Area restarts are simply my way of loading a quicksave for you. All maps take longer than the average Blizzard campaign map, clocking at 30-60 minutes. Losing the the end fight and having to start all over could be very frustrasting.
Chapter 6 gameplay is now 70% finished. I reduced the number of bosses from 5 to 4. The map already needs 40 minutes ingame time to be completed.
I expect to start working on the terrain within the following 10-14 days. I want to show you the current state via a screenshot and give frequent updates over the next 2-3 weeks to show you in detail how the map evolves.
The plan for the next 7-10 days is to:
add the remaining 30% of the level/encounters
add basic balancing for all four difficulty levels
do frequent playthroughs, fix bugs, improve balance and level design
The plan for days 8-21:
Finish the story-script
Make the terrain
Add cinematics, tranmissions and hints
If all goes well the map will be in beta before March. After that I'll make some plans for the final Chapter 7 and decide if it's going to be small enough to finish withing a few weeks or sometime during summer.
Compared to Chapters 2 - 5 the Chapters 6 & 7 don't need much work with the Data editor, which has always been the reason why this campaign takes so long to make. Kinda surprised myself how quickly Chapter 6 is progressing.
When all maps are in beta I'll have to put some work into some of the old maps but it shouldn't take too long. Release of the campaign could be as early as Fall. If shit really hits the fan it will be summer 2016 at the latest. The release of LotV will also be a deciding factor (maybe there will be new features I'd like to take advantage of).
Entire chapter 6 is now completely playable. Over the past 8 days I finished the last 20% of the level design, optimized game play (e.g. made distance between enemy units smaller, improved boss gameplay), added a system that lets unit keep their xp, but only if all units are lost and the area is reset, implemented and tweaked all four difficulty levels, finished the storscript and implemented all transmissions.
Over the next 5-7 days I'll tweak the gameplay/fix bugs. When I am satisfied I'll move onto making the terrain and cinematics. After some additional bugfixing/tweaking the map will be deemed finished (actually just beta).
if you are wondering why there are barely any units: they are all created via triggers, so I can easily replace them when an area is reset. ... "Thanks" to this map has a (personal) record breaking 270 Regions and 228 Points.
Yeah, I want testers. I haven't had any map tested by others after chapter 3. I am still undecided about the how and when; there are a few issues I have with co-op, battle.net and the lack of a second PC/laptop for myself, which I need to sort out first.
Rough estimation:
Chapter 6 beta: End of Feb - Mid-march
Chapter 7 beta: some time during summer
Update chapters 1-6: end of summer/fall
(If the LotV release is close by then I will wait until it's released and see what new things I can put into the campaign)
After the updates are made I will organize private/public test sessions for all maps (late fall to early winter if LotV is still far away)
Release of campaign: winter 2015/16 at the latest (theoretically anything between summer 2015 and summer 2016 is possible)
My guess is they will announce the release date of LotV at blizzcon and release it sometime March 2016. I will not want to wait until then, instead add any updates in a later patch (or not at all).
So far I am happy with how the project is going (except for the long time it takes). Every map plays different or has different features. Some feel common, some feel unique.
I am still undecided about the how and when. Preferrably EU region but will probably be no big deal to do it in other regions. There is still a lot do do before testing.
Map has gone into alpha. Everything is playable now from start to finish. All difficulty levels have been implemented (although could use a bit more balancing).
Gameplay feels good. Boss fights need a bit of tweaking though, but that will happen along the way.
Started with terrain today, finished about 10%. It's my first time I worked with the Ulaan tileset so I took a look at how blizzard did it with the first Zeratul mission. Kinda strange; they use very few types of doodads. Mostly spires, fog and lightning. Their terrain textures looks very random. Usually each texture is used for a specific purpose.
Area1 terrain now finished. 25% overall terrain completed.
I try to give each area/room a different look but the color palette is really monotonous and there are very few doodads designed for the Ulaan tileset. I usually refrain from mixing different tilesets, especially when I'm not experienced with them.
Terrain is finished (except the place where the outro cinematic takes place).
I still have to create the cinematics and finetune gameplay (still not quite happy with some boss fights). Hopefully done in 5-10 days.
Some features I haven't mentioned yet: Custom load screens (as you can see) for each map.
Also each map has 2-3 codices. These are items you can find in the map. When you click one of them a window appears with lore information. Custom victory screen for each map that displays statistics for each player unique to each map, the number of codices found and the playtime.
Sooo, I finished chapter 6 back in february and campaign has been on-hold since then (getting bachelor's degree yadi yada). Just wanted to say I've had some spare time and (almost) finished pre-production (=just writing stuff in MS Word or using Paint) on map layout, mission objectives and transcript for the final chapter 7. It's going to be a very classic base-building-mission in two phases (1. hold out, 2. kill all).
I'll continue being preoccupied with real life until at least mid July. Then I'll finish an update on one of my WC3 campaigns. Actual work on Chapter 7 will start sometime late-August/September if I have time. I'm kind of also waiting for the release of LotV to see what kind of features this campaign can benefit from. Archon mode actually seems like the perfect fit for my campaign: It's been designed with co-op in mind but balanced for singleplayer. Letting players share units as they seem fit seems like a perfect idea.
Good campaign. Shadow of the Xel'Naga is a good story book that I read but I like this one which is making it campaign as a side story for SC1. Great job for making it. :-)
Been working on the final chapter for some days now. First 15 minutes are about defending the artifact; after that the objective is "destroy everything" (not exactly but can't go into details without spoiling anything). It's pretty straightforward and pretty simple compared to the previous chapters but I think it's good for several reasons: SC2 and HOTS have way too many missions with time pressure so I enjoyed missions like Maw of the Void more than usual. All other chapters in my campaign don't really have any base building, except for chapter 4 but that's only tower defense with limited resource management and you could only place your towers at specific locations. I think a "destroy everything" mission is always a good way to finish a campaign, giving the player the opportunity to chose his own approach.
With the map being this relatively simple, it is already in alpha (playable from start to finish, with four difficulty levels) with approx. 50 minutes of playtime (depending on your speed and difficulty level). Yet to do: Add more scripted events for more action and surprises, terrain, transmissions, cinematics, balancing, bugfixing. I also haven't figured out yet how to deal with the players losing their bases. All previous maps can't be lost; but have some sort of custom checkpoint.
Will be on vacation from 20th to 25th but I think I can do a lot of stuff until then (and after). I don't have any obligations until mid-September so I'm sure this mission will be finished before then. Afterwards I'll have to update all the previous chapters (should take about 3-7 days per map) and then I can publish the entire campaign on battle.net.
Just in case anyone decides to comment, here's a screenshot of the current state:
Refined the gameplay. Seperated the two player bases to get the players out of their comfort zone until they capture the zerg expansion. Better terrain spacing. Zerg and Protoss won't engage each other (wasn't as fun as I thought). Map is more gimmicky: Added an ability for both players to call mini nukes (almost) anywhere on the battlefield at any time (costs energy). Map feels a lot better than the previous iteration but will test it further before I work on other stuff.
You'll notice in the latest iteration that the top-left part of the map has changed. This is where you defend the Xel'Naga Temple from attacks. I decided to move it closer to the actual action to create a bigger sense of drama. This part of the terrain reused in Chapters 1, 2, and 5 and each time I had to change the terrain to fit new gameplay mechanics or cinematics around the Temple. This is one of the reasons why I can't just publish "finished" maps, as they are not truly finished. I have to go back to the previous chapters and change the terrain for this Temple to make it work for any kind of gameplay and cinematic.
Chapter 7 is coming along well and gameplay is almost finished, only some tweaks and balancing remaining. I think I can start working on terrain and cinematics this coming weekend.
edit: Oh btw. You might notice the red buildings. These are placeholders because almost all units on this map are created via triggers. This was done so players who want to restart the map/an objective don't need to restart it from the SC2 menu/Arcade but can simply press a dialog button that is at the top right of the user interface.
http://imgur.com/a/fUZGM
I thought I would share the names of the missions and the design for the Battle.net icons. Old version used to have violet text, a different font. and the label "SOTX" on each icon. I have also remade the loading screen but want to work on it a bit more.
After another break for my studies I've returned to work on Chapter 5. As I wrote it relies heavily on stealth and plays a bit like the old Commandos/Desperados games where you have to avoid the gaze of enemies, by getting past them or knocking them out. There will be no killing in this mission.
Gameplay is almost finished so I've started working on the terrain. Here you can see an area from different perspectives (yeah I know: editor screenshots suck and should be avoided, especially WIP).
I hope to be finished in 7-10 days. Chapters 6 and 7 are going to be really simple (and hopefully not take as long) because they'll mostly be based on existing gameplay ideas.
Chapter 5 is almost finished (need to finish the outro cinematic, add battle.net information and fix some more bugs) so I took some screenshots to add to my portfolio site: http://www.outsiderxe.campaigncreations.org/sotx05.php . Hope to be finished in 5-7 days.
I want chapter 6 to contain a lot of boss fights (like that Kerrigan-Zerus map) but the players should control a small force and no heroes.
Continued work on chapter 6 a couple of days ago. Will hopefully work on it until the end of February.
Planned features for Chapter 6:
To-do:
As each map is so different from one another, each map handles hero deaths and mission failures differently:
An area/corridor etc. usually consists of 5-15 minutes of play time. Usually not all progrss is lost. Gained experience, items or completed optional objectives are kept.
Again, this was done so people don't have to go through the annoying process of restoring a save game through a replay on Battle.net. Area restarts are simply my way of loading a quicksave for you. All maps take longer than the average Blizzard campaign map, clocking at 30-60 minutes. Losing the the end fight and having to start all over could be very frustrasting.
Chapter 6 gameplay is now 70% finished. I reduced the number of bosses from 5 to 4. The map already needs 40 minutes ingame time to be completed. I expect to start working on the terrain within the following 10-14 days. I want to show you the current state via a screenshot and give frequent updates over the next 2-3 weeks to show you in detail how the map evolves.
The plan for the next 7-10 days is to:
The plan for days 8-21:
If all goes well the map will be in beta before March. After that I'll make some plans for the final Chapter 7 and decide if it's going to be small enough to finish withing a few weeks or sometime during summer.
Compared to Chapters 2 - 5 the Chapters 6 & 7 don't need much work with the Data editor, which has always been the reason why this campaign takes so long to make. Kinda surprised myself how quickly Chapter 6 is progressing.
When all maps are in beta I'll have to put some work into some of the old maps but it shouldn't take too long. Release of the campaign could be as early as Fall. If shit really hits the fan it will be summer 2016 at the latest. The release of LotV will also be a deciding factor (maybe there will be new features I'd like to take advantage of).
Entire chapter 6 is now completely playable. Over the past 8 days I finished the last 20% of the level design, optimized game play (e.g. made distance between enemy units smaller, improved boss gameplay), added a system that lets unit keep their xp, but only if all units are lost and the area is reset, implemented and tweaked all four difficulty levels, finished the storscript and implemented all transmissions.
Over the next 5-7 days I'll tweak the gameplay/fix bugs. When I am satisfied I'll move onto making the terrain and cinematics. After some additional bugfixing/tweaking the map will be deemed finished (actually just beta).
if you are wondering why there are barely any units: they are all created via triggers, so I can easily replace them when an area is reset. ... "Thanks" to this map has a (personal) record breaking 270 Regions and 228 Points.
My brother and i wanna test! Lemme know if you need testers. Looks so good best SC short story!
same here
Yeah, I want testers. I haven't had any map tested by others after chapter 3. I am still undecided about the how and when; there are a few issues I have with co-op, battle.net and the lack of a second PC/laptop for myself, which I need to sort out first.
Rough estimation:
My guess is they will announce the release date of LotV at blizzcon and release it sometime March 2016. I will not want to wait until then, instead add any updates in a later patch (or not at all).
So far I am happy with how the project is going (except for the long time it takes). Every map plays different or has different features. Some feel common, some feel unique.
When are your test happening and what region?
I am still undecided about the how and when. Preferrably EU region but will probably be no big deal to do it in other regions. There is still a lot do do before testing.
Map has gone into alpha. Everything is playable now from start to finish. All difficulty levels have been implemented (although could use a bit more balancing). Gameplay feels good. Boss fights need a bit of tweaking though, but that will happen along the way.
Started with terrain today, finished about 10%. It's my first time I worked with the Ulaan tileset so I took a look at how blizzard did it with the first Zeratul mission. Kinda strange; they use very few types of doodads. Mostly spires, fog and lightning. Their terrain textures looks very random. Usually each texture is used for a specific purpose.
Area1 terrain now finished. 25% overall terrain completed. I try to give each area/room a different look but the color palette is really monotonous and there are very few doodads designed for the Ulaan tileset. I usually refrain from mixing different tilesets, especially when I'm not experienced with them.
Hey guys, just created a thread over at the terrain forum (http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/development/terrain/75744-shadow-of-the-xel-naga-chapter-6-terrain/) to show of ingame screenshots of Chapter 6.
Terrain is finished (except the place where the outro cinematic takes place).
I still have to create the cinematics and finetune gameplay (still not quite happy with some boss fights). Hopefully done in 5-10 days.
Some features I haven't mentioned yet: Custom load screens (as you can see) for each map. Also each map has 2-3 codices. These are items you can find in the map. When you click one of them a window appears with lore information. Custom victory screen for each map that displays statistics for each player unique to each map, the number of codices found and the playtime.
Sooo, I finished chapter 6 back in february and campaign has been on-hold since then (getting bachelor's degree yadi yada). Just wanted to say I've had some spare time and (almost) finished pre-production (=just writing stuff in MS Word or using Paint) on map layout, mission objectives and transcript for the final chapter 7. It's going to be a very classic base-building-mission in two phases (1. hold out, 2. kill all).
I'll continue being preoccupied with real life until at least mid July. Then I'll finish an update on one of my WC3 campaigns. Actual work on Chapter 7 will start sometime late-August/September if I have time. I'm kind of also waiting for the release of LotV to see what kind of features this campaign can benefit from. Archon mode actually seems like the perfect fit for my campaign: It's been designed with co-op in mind but balanced for singleplayer. Letting players share units as they seem fit seems like a perfect idea.
so far so good good job!!! :-)
Marie T. Freeman If you're too busy to give your neighbor a helping hand, then you're just too darned busy. https://www.facebook.com/wargirlmaps.maps
Spread the love join DISCORD
https://discord.gg/Jtzt8Su
Good campaign. Shadow of the Xel'Naga is a good story book that I read but I like this one which is making it campaign as a side story for SC1. Great job for making it. :-)
Visit my projects in this links: Hammer's Assets, Protoss Factions Units ,Terran Organization Units
Been working on the final chapter for some days now. First 15 minutes are about defending the artifact; after that the objective is "destroy everything" (not exactly but can't go into details without spoiling anything). It's pretty straightforward and pretty simple compared to the previous chapters but I think it's good for several reasons: SC2 and HOTS have way too many missions with time pressure so I enjoyed missions like Maw of the Void more than usual. All other chapters in my campaign don't really have any base building, except for chapter 4 but that's only tower defense with limited resource management and you could only place your towers at specific locations. I think a "destroy everything" mission is always a good way to finish a campaign, giving the player the opportunity to chose his own approach.
With the map being this relatively simple, it is already in alpha (playable from start to finish, with four difficulty levels) with approx. 50 minutes of playtime (depending on your speed and difficulty level). Yet to do: Add more scripted events for more action and surprises, terrain, transmissions, cinematics, balancing, bugfixing. I also haven't figured out yet how to deal with the players losing their bases. All previous maps can't be lost; but have some sort of custom checkpoint.
Will be on vacation from 20th to 25th but I think I can do a lot of stuff until then (and after). I don't have any obligations until mid-September so I'm sure this mission will be finished before then. Afterwards I'll have to update all the previous chapters (should take about 3-7 days per map) and then I can publish the entire campaign on battle.net.
Just in case anyone decides to comment, here's a screenshot of the current state:
Refined the gameplay. Seperated the two player bases to get the players out of their comfort zone until they capture the zerg expansion. Better terrain spacing. Zerg and Protoss won't engage each other (wasn't as fun as I thought). Map is more gimmicky: Added an ability for both players to call mini nukes (almost) anywhere on the battlefield at any time (costs energy). Map feels a lot better than the previous iteration but will test it further before I work on other stuff.
You'll notice in the latest iteration that the top-left part of the map has changed. This is where you defend the Xel'Naga Temple from attacks. I decided to move it closer to the actual action to create a bigger sense of drama. This part of the terrain reused in Chapters 1, 2, and 5 and each time I had to change the terrain to fit new gameplay mechanics or cinematics around the Temple. This is one of the reasons why I can't just publish "finished" maps, as they are not truly finished. I have to go back to the previous chapters and change the terrain for this Temple to make it work for any kind of gameplay and cinematic.
Chapter 7 is coming along well and gameplay is almost finished, only some tweaks and balancing remaining. I think I can start working on terrain and cinematics this coming weekend.
edit: Oh btw. You might notice the red buildings. These are placeholders because almost all units on this map are created via triggers. This was done so players who want to restart the map/an objective don't need to restart it from the SC2 menu/Arcade but can simply press a dialog button that is at the top right of the user interface.