I'm not sure what I think of the side switch for the player. It is an interesting twist, and I suppose a valuable way to give the heroes a defeat amongst their victories, but at the same time, it disrupts the continuity. Multi-POV stories is certainly possible in games, but I find Blizzard's way of doing it to be somewhat better (one story at a time, essentially).
Gameplay-wise, I wish we could have Stalkers (because of Blink) instead of Dragoons, and Warp Prims instead of Shuttles. Maybe there is lore explaining this that I missed, but it doesn't give many advantages. Shuttles are pretty much useless anyways, whilst WPs work great (their absense is felt more because the creep in the main Zerg base doesn't retract, which discourages forward pylons).
I like the cinematics. Voranor's VA takes a few slips in the intro, but I liked the ending (both Voranor and Telios have sympathethic motives), even though the Black Mesa fight was a bit confusing. Were they supposed to be blinking? I like that you come back to Parker too. A lot of the developments doesn't seem to come into effect until a while after their set-up, which shows story-telling prowess.
I also like that you stay consistent with the terrain, sticking to the same world for most of the missions. However, the quality of the terrain is still not good enough (not just aestethically, but structurally as well). My observer got stuck in the mountains as well, as if there were some poorly placed air blockers or something.
Interesting gameplay. It felt like a macro version of the first Brood War Zerg mission, Vile Disruption. I must say I wished you had been more explicit about the fact that you could use Dark Templars to control the bases, though. Maybe I am slow, but I didn't notice it until mousing the objectives (poor phrasing, I know). I know you stressed their importance, but I felt at least a tip could have been useful. Also realize that mission types like this fall into the same trap as old SC missions: they become easier the longer they go on. Why? Because the player's army grows while the enemy's shrinks. It is one of the reasons I like the gameplay in SC2 better than SC1, and why I try to avoid it in my own missions. One easy way to fix it would be to do it like Haven't Fall in WOL, where you have to destroy Virophages, but have to be aggressive, because new ones keep popping out, spawning increasingly stronger waves (you can therefore defend and build up, or set out earlier with a smaller army).
I would have set the player race to Protoss too. I know we mostly control Zerg, but we are Protoss controlling Zerg. Doing this would enhance the feeling that we are still Protoss, as well as the fact that we are tampering with forces we really shouldn't tamper with.
I found a bug as well. Certain transmissions trigger after you capture more and more bases. The 6th one plays both over the 6th and 7th capture, which in the last example means there is a lot of talking over each other. I would recommend setting a "Trigger Execution Count=0" for such triggers, so they don't play again. Also, when you trigger transmissions with certain events, you should avoid the possibility of the trigger running over each other. They way I do this is to create a boolean variable that I turn on whenever a transmission start, like this:
Events:
EivindL enters Region 77
Actions:
Wait for condition: "InTransmission" = false
Set "In transmission" = true
Play transmission
Set "In transmission" = false
I do like what is being said in the transmissions, though. There is a lot of moral ambiguity, and a feeling that nothing really changes, and that the player Protoss are replacing their enemies (something they don't seem to realize themselves).
Yeah, I agree with that. Though I've learned to love the opportunities offered by attack waves, I admit they can also be predictable without randomization.
Interesting to see an interior mission. I love those. However, the terrain could use a lot of work. I felt more like I was walking through random corridors than a ship (look to Piercing the Shroud and the prison mission in HOTS for inspiration). Cool to play as Meliak, though. I could listen to him read the grocery list. All day. Unfortunately, I think a Principality would like a more varied challenge than the one posed here. I just used Void Charges a lot, as going in for the direct kill with all the units was too risky, even with full upgrades. The ability seem a bit random, though, sometimes taking out an entire group, other times just the one unit you picked. Perhaps make it more like a traditional AOE, like Fungal or Psionic Storm, where you can actually see in advance where you will hit?
I like the story, but again, there are so many characters, and I have a hard time keeping score of everyone's motivation (and this is from the world's greatest fan of The Wire, which demanded so much from its audience with its ridiculous amount of characters). Nice to see Lazadin's death come back, and Telios strangling Orthos was a nice tough (as was Meliak throwing the Ghost). Speaking of Ghosts, though: I like that you use bonus objectives, but I am reminded of why I don't use them much myself, as they really yield few rewards. Or maybe yours did. I didn't kill all the Ghosts, because I guess I wasn't given much of a reason to.
The Protoss ship is cool, although I preferred it when you made diagonal corridors, which made the map seem less like a chess board. I also guess it must be kind of annoying to have made it and then have Blizzard make the Daelaam Ark? Thank you for including stealth gameplay, though. I am a big Metal Gear Solid fan and I love sneaking around in games. Originally, I was going to base most of Crimson Moon around that concept, but there was so little room for it in the story, which meant you only did it for a few missions. Still, there should be some in Amber Sun too. The fourth mission, which I just released, has a really cool stealth mini-mission. Btw, I wasn't spotted once in your mission, though the lack of a load functionality made me concentrate more.
Be aware that the door before Logan's bridge did not keep me out. I walked right through it, just about to the edges of the Protoss ship. Is there something you're not telling us about that Battlecruiser? Is there a Protoss/Terran conspiracy?? :D
So, I just played this one. Had been meaning to for some time, but had to catch up on school work.
First of all, cool to get to play as Terran. I also still like the plot. It's sort of spider-webby: double- and triple-crosses all over. It feels like I'm watching Blood Simple (a film I hold very highly, and one I consider to be among the best when it comes to these sort of intricate plots).
I noticed a few issues, though: You can upgrade stim packs, but marines already have them. Also, the enemy is labeled "Player 2". Is this Battle.net overriding custom names, or did you just forget?
Banelings run away from their own attack waves. I suppose they don't have their "attack structures" ability turned on. Also: All attack waves (at least on normal) are targeted towards the main base. I prefer using a player, not a location, as a target, as the enemy can find you even when you expand, but that's me, I guess. Some of the overlords are obviously set to land at the back of the base, which means they are easy to take out. Using attack wave waypoints is tricky that way. I mean, where do you put them?
I like that the hero couldn't die, though I wish I knew in advance, as I could have been without me frantically trying to rescue myself because I hadn't saved the game. I guess the reason I expected that to be a game over was that this was the norm in the previous missions.
The right map border needs to be fixed, though. It doesn't stretch far enough. You can barely see some of the Protoss buildings. And some of the minerals are out of reach without transports, even if they are on low ground. I'd like a mineral counter as well, to see the progress.
Overall, a good map. I'm not sure the industrial music track that keeps reappearing is best suited for a Protoss campaign, though. Sounds like it would fit more in a gritty Terran campaign. Still, that's subjective.
* POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR THE TWO FIRST MISSIONS * *
I played this during the beta. I must say the inclusion of the voice-over makes for a great improvement (my personal favorite is Meliak), even though the quality is uneven. However, I still don't understand why Protoss voices now have so much reverb and echo (or whatever the sound effect is called). I checked back in the original, and they don't sound too alien (and Aldaris still sounds like Col. Campbell). It seems to be the norm in SC2 and custom campaigns, but I'm not a big fan of it, to be honest.
I played the first two missions. I like the story developments, especially that the events are consequences of characters making individual decisions based on personal motivations, and not prophecy warnings (one should expect no less from a member of SCLegacy, I guess). But, the "controlling Zerg" plot feels a tad less underwhelming than it should be. I think one of the reasons for that is that it appears a tad too early to be believable. Say what you will about how the UED controlled the Overmind, but when it finally happened, it felt like the reward of truly hard work (for both player and in-game faction). However, I might let that slip if it makes for a good story (and I expect you have reasons for introducing it early).
There are a lot of characters to keep score on, though, and if I'm not mistaken, the first mission alone introduces seven of them (six Protoss and one Terran). If the Zerg plot was underwhelming, the sheer amount of characters is the opposite (I tried to spread out the introductions in my campaign for this exact reason). I do like that they have clear characteristics and that they are not just chess pieces, though, and I am admittedly curious to see where this is all heading.
The terrain is less impressive. It looks better than the beta (the shining snow and deep valleys look wicked), but I still think the story deserves something more. The gameplay too, is both occasionally inspired (hold-outs and sneak attacks are big plus) and also a bit bland at times. This is a hard area to get right, though, and I think WOL may have left us expecting a lot.
There are also some small things I want to mention. I like that you can skip cinematics (a feature I believe the SC1 remake lacks), but you might want to work on it. For example, if you skip the cinematic where Meliak assassinates the HT in mission 1, he'll still walk over there as if the guy is not dead yet, the reason being that he has been given a command that has not been belayed. The way I do this is simply to move the units to where they are supposed to be when the cinematic is finished and order them to stop (in cause they are moving). It helps tremendously with flow. Also: please move the portraits to bottom left (they are center left now). This is bugging me tremendously. And move and change cameras every once in a while.
Also, I like that you can have Dragoons, though I didn't hear an attack sound.
Cool that you are making a Protoss campaign, especially with voice-over (insert envy here)! I play Protoss on battle.net myself, and yet for some reason I'm dabbling with Terrans. Yuk...
Mission 06:
I'm not sure what I think of the side switch for the player. It is an interesting twist, and I suppose a valuable way to give the heroes a defeat amongst their victories, but at the same time, it disrupts the continuity. Multi-POV stories is certainly possible in games, but I find Blizzard's way of doing it to be somewhat better (one story at a time, essentially).
Gameplay-wise, I wish we could have Stalkers (because of Blink) instead of Dragoons, and Warp Prims instead of Shuttles. Maybe there is lore explaining this that I missed, but it doesn't give many advantages. Shuttles are pretty much useless anyways, whilst WPs work great (their absense is felt more because the creep in the main Zerg base doesn't retract, which discourages forward pylons).
I like the cinematics. Voranor's VA takes a few slips in the intro, but I liked the ending (both Voranor and Telios have sympathethic motives), even though the Black Mesa fight was a bit confusing. Were they supposed to be blinking? I like that you come back to Parker too. A lot of the developments doesn't seem to come into effect until a while after their set-up, which shows story-telling prowess.
I also like that you stay consistent with the terrain, sticking to the same world for most of the missions. However, the quality of the terrain is still not good enough (not just aestethically, but structurally as well). My observer got stuck in the mountains as well, as if there were some poorly placed air blockers or something.
Mission 05:
Interesting gameplay. It felt like a macro version of the first Brood War Zerg mission, Vile Disruption. I must say I wished you had been more explicit about the fact that you could use Dark Templars to control the bases, though. Maybe I am slow, but I didn't notice it until mousing the objectives (poor phrasing, I know). I know you stressed their importance, but I felt at least a tip could have been useful. Also realize that mission types like this fall into the same trap as old SC missions: they become easier the longer they go on. Why? Because the player's army grows while the enemy's shrinks. It is one of the reasons I like the gameplay in SC2 better than SC1, and why I try to avoid it in my own missions. One easy way to fix it would be to do it like Haven't Fall in WOL, where you have to destroy Virophages, but have to be aggressive, because new ones keep popping out, spawning increasingly stronger waves (you can therefore defend and build up, or set out earlier with a smaller army).
I would have set the player race to Protoss too. I know we mostly control Zerg, but we are Protoss controlling Zerg. Doing this would enhance the feeling that we are still Protoss, as well as the fact that we are tampering with forces we really shouldn't tamper with.
I found a bug as well. Certain transmissions trigger after you capture more and more bases. The 6th one plays both over the 6th and 7th capture, which in the last example means there is a lot of talking over each other. I would recommend setting a "Trigger Execution Count=0" for such triggers, so they don't play again. Also, when you trigger transmissions with certain events, you should avoid the possibility of the trigger running over each other. They way I do this is to create a boolean variable that I turn on whenever a transmission start, like this:
Events:
Actions:
I do like what is being said in the transmissions, though. There is a lot of moral ambiguity, and a feeling that nothing really changes, and that the player Protoss are replacing their enemies (something they don't seem to realize themselves).
A good mission.
Yeah, I agree with that. Though I've learned to love the opportunities offered by attack waves, I admit they can also be predictable without randomization.
Mission 04:
Interesting to see an interior mission. I love those. However, the terrain could use a lot of work. I felt more like I was walking through random corridors than a ship (look to Piercing the Shroud and the prison mission in HOTS for inspiration). Cool to play as Meliak, though. I could listen to him read the grocery list. All day. Unfortunately, I think a Principality would like a more varied challenge than the one posed here. I just used Void Charges a lot, as going in for the direct kill with all the units was too risky, even with full upgrades. The ability seem a bit random, though, sometimes taking out an entire group, other times just the one unit you picked. Perhaps make it more like a traditional AOE, like Fungal or Psionic Storm, where you can actually see in advance where you will hit?
I like the story, but again, there are so many characters, and I have a hard time keeping score of everyone's motivation (and this is from the world's greatest fan of The Wire, which demanded so much from its audience with its ridiculous amount of characters). Nice to see Lazadin's death come back, and Telios strangling Orthos was a nice tough (as was Meliak throwing the Ghost). Speaking of Ghosts, though: I like that you use bonus objectives, but I am reminded of why I don't use them much myself, as they really yield few rewards. Or maybe yours did. I didn't kill all the Ghosts, because I guess I wasn't given much of a reason to.
The Protoss ship is cool, although I preferred it when you made diagonal corridors, which made the map seem less like a chess board. I also guess it must be kind of annoying to have made it and then have Blizzard make the Daelaam Ark? Thank you for including stealth gameplay, though. I am a big Metal Gear Solid fan and I love sneaking around in games. Originally, I was going to base most of Crimson Moon around that concept, but there was so little room for it in the story, which meant you only did it for a few missions. Still, there should be some in Amber Sun too. The fourth mission, which I just released, has a really cool stealth mini-mission. Btw, I wasn't spotted once in your mission, though the lack of a load functionality made me concentrate more.
Be aware that the door before Logan's bridge did not keep me out. I walked right through it, just about to the edges of the Protoss ship. Is there something you're not telling us about that Battlecruiser? Is there a Protoss/Terran conspiracy?? :D
I also loved the intro entrance, btw.
Mission 3:
So, I just played this one. Had been meaning to for some time, but had to catch up on school work.
First of all, cool to get to play as Terran. I also still like the plot. It's sort of spider-webby: double- and triple-crosses all over. It feels like I'm watching Blood Simple (a film I hold very highly, and one I consider to be among the best when it comes to these sort of intricate plots).
I noticed a few issues, though: You can upgrade stim packs, but marines already have them. Also, the enemy is labeled "Player 2". Is this Battle.net overriding custom names, or did you just forget?
Banelings run away from their own attack waves. I suppose they don't have their "attack structures" ability turned on. Also: All attack waves (at least on normal) are targeted towards the main base. I prefer using a player, not a location, as a target, as the enemy can find you even when you expand, but that's me, I guess. Some of the overlords are obviously set to land at the back of the base, which means they are easy to take out. Using attack wave waypoints is tricky that way. I mean, where do you put them?
I like that the hero couldn't die, though I wish I knew in advance, as I could have been without me frantically trying to rescue myself because I hadn't saved the game. I guess the reason I expected that to be a game over was that this was the norm in the previous missions.
The right map border needs to be fixed, though. It doesn't stretch far enough. You can barely see some of the Protoss buildings. And some of the minerals are out of reach without transports, even if they are on low ground. I'd like a mineral counter as well, to see the progress.
Overall, a good map. I'm not sure the industrial music track that keeps reappearing is best suited for a Protoss campaign, though. Sounds like it would fit more in a gritty Terran campaign. Still, that's subjective.
I played this during the beta. I must say the inclusion of the voice-over makes for a great improvement (my personal favorite is Meliak), even though the quality is uneven. However, I still don't understand why Protoss voices now have so much reverb and echo (or whatever the sound effect is called). I checked back in the original, and they don't sound too alien (and Aldaris still sounds like Col. Campbell). It seems to be the norm in SC2 and custom campaigns, but I'm not a big fan of it, to be honest.
I played the first two missions. I like the story developments, especially that the events are consequences of characters making individual decisions based on personal motivations, and not prophecy warnings (one should expect no less from a member of SCLegacy, I guess). But, the "controlling Zerg" plot feels a tad less underwhelming than it should be. I think one of the reasons for that is that it appears a tad too early to be believable. Say what you will about how the UED controlled the Overmind, but when it finally happened, it felt like the reward of truly hard work (for both player and in-game faction). However, I might let that slip if it makes for a good story (and I expect you have reasons for introducing it early).
There are a lot of characters to keep score on, though, and if I'm not mistaken, the first mission alone introduces seven of them (six Protoss and one Terran). If the Zerg plot was underwhelming, the sheer amount of characters is the opposite (I tried to spread out the introductions in my campaign for this exact reason). I do like that they have clear characteristics and that they are not just chess pieces, though, and I am admittedly curious to see where this is all heading.
The terrain is less impressive. It looks better than the beta (the shining snow and deep valleys look wicked), but I still think the story deserves something more. The gameplay too, is both occasionally inspired (hold-outs and sneak attacks are big plus) and also a bit bland at times. This is a hard area to get right, though, and I think WOL may have left us expecting a lot.
There are also some small things I want to mention. I like that you can skip cinematics (a feature I believe the SC1 remake lacks), but you might want to work on it. For example, if you skip the cinematic where Meliak assassinates the HT in mission 1, he'll still walk over there as if the guy is not dead yet, the reason being that he has been given a command that has not been belayed. The way I do this is simply to move the units to where they are supposed to be when the cinematic is finished and order them to stop (in cause they are moving). It helps tremendously with flow. Also: please move the portraits to bottom left (they are center left now). This is bugging me tremendously. And move and change cameras every once in a while.
Also, I like that you can have Dragoons, though I didn't hear an attack sound.
Cool that you are making a Protoss campaign, especially with voice-over (insert envy here)! I play Protoss on battle.net myself, and yet for some reason I'm dabbling with Terrans. Yuk...