Starcraft 2: Odyssey Campaign
Warning: Blizzard's patches are known to create bugs and/or glitches at times. Feel free to report issues you may encounter.
Introduction
Odyssey is my first attempt at creating a Starcraft 2 project consisting of a multi-act campaign set in the Kardyan Quadrant... far away from the Koprulu Sector. Played from the Terran point of view of Captain Jared Harsh of the Marine Ground Forces: Hell's Rejects, Act I focuses on his struggles throughout the battle-scorned planet Duros III.
Featuring high-quality terraining with some decent writing accompanying, Odyssey hopes to push forward the storytelling capabilities of a custom campaign with its long-length cutscenes and additional lore to the Starcraft universe. As storytelling alone won't make a videogame, the gameplay, despite not being the true focus, can still present fresh mechanics and unique situations.
Even though the events planned to unfold in the Kardyan Quadrant are very long and complex, Act I is set for only 14 missions. As for Act II and beyond, time will tell.
How to Install and Play
- Locate the Maps folder inside your Starcraft II installation directory and create within it a folder named Odyssey.
- Place all the missions and launcher files inside it.
- Initiate the Starcraft II editor and then load the launcher file.
- On the editor go to File > Test Document.
- Follow the launcher's instructions and enjoy.
History of the Kardyan Quadrant
Departing from Earth, thousands of Terrans constituted the Second Exodus about ten years after the Exile of the “dissidents” who would come to crash-land on the Koprulu Sector. The members of the Second Exodus eventually arrived at the Kardyan Quadrant where they started expanding and thriving. Colonizing the Earth-like planet of Parsya and declaring it the Capital World, the quadrant became theirs. Over the decades, backwater planets and moons became increasingly aggravated with the burdening taxations employed by the Commerce Guilds of Parsya. Unable to sustain those taxations, the colonists abandoned the Parsyan Collective and settled on remote and poor systems where Parsya had no interests. There, they took the name, Exodian Clans.
The Parsyan government, shaken by the sudden loss of manpower on the outlying planets, deployed a massive funding into the Research Divisions. Such, allowed for the creation of a new artificial intelligence capable of self-learning, far more advanced than the average Adjutant. Built into manlike androids, later called Synthetics, the outlying planets were populated with them to serve as Parsya’s workforce. As their artificial minds were evolved upon with the passing generations, eventually, the Series 3 began showing signs of free-will, being capable of choosing to ignore orders given by humans. The Parsyan Collective, afraid of a possible synthetic rebellion, amassed all its military power under control of seven of the highest-ranking Admirals and Generals, unofficially named, the Steel Council. The amassed power of the Parsyan military became known as the Federation of Warfare, a force to be reckoned with. To their surprise, the Synthetics did not wish ill upon humanity and instead chose to leave Parsyan controlled space much like the Exodian Clans had done decades before. They were never heard from again. Fearing that they would one day change their minds or the possibility of an invasion by the Exodian Clans, Parsya kept expanding the Federation of Warfare and forbade the research into artificial intelligence, and even, the use of Adjutants.
As the decades went by, Parsya outgrew itself in power and economy but also in greed. The unforgivable event later named the Powering Strife led the Federation of Warfare into detaching itself from Parsya and declaring independence under command of Admiral Cassius Rourke who took the mantle of Grand Marshal. Head of the Steel Council and supreme commander of the Federation. The Parsyan Collective, aware of the threat the Federation posed, began sinking its economy into buying the loyalty of some of the Federation’s divisions and commanders and even hiring mercenary armies from the Exodian Clans. The two forces clashed and the Powering Wars lasted for five years, ending with the troubled invasion but inevitable fall of Parsya. At the Post-War Peace Treaty of 2490, it was determined that the surviving Parsyans would be restricted to their crumbled planet in agreement that the Federation could never again set foot there. As the Federation of Warfare became the unchallenged power in the Kardyan Quadrant, ten years of peace flourished.
On the 23rd of March 2500, the miners of the Planet Duros III began a rebellion against the Federation of Warfare for the deplorable conditions they were set to work on. Now, less than forty-eight hours later, the peacekeeping Battlecruisers Heimdall and Pegasus arrive at the planet with orders to restore control.
- Mission 1 - Hell's Rejects
- Mission 2 - Soldiers of the Federation
- Mission 3 - The Beast of Statbrough
- Mission 4 - Unwanted Guests
- Mission 5 - Clipped Wings Part 1
- Mission 6 - Clipped Wings Part 2
- Mission 7 - The Siege of Arkingston
- Mission 8 - The Federation Strikes Back
- Mission 9 - Rising Dread
- Mission 10 - Outrunning Death
- Mission 11 - What Lies Beneath
- Mission 12 - Falling From Grace
- Mission 13 - The Bigger They Are...
- Mission 14 - Limitless
All the missions' showcases can be seen on Youtube by JayborinoPlays: Link here...
And also, DeltronLive: Link here...
Screenshots
Special Thanks
To my friend Hélio for creating the Odyssey logo and tempering with the hero icons and to Marco and Vanda for putting up with me when I wouldn't shut up about the story. Also, thanks to JayborinoPlays and DeltronLive for showcasing Odyssey on their youtube channels and to everyone who enjoys this and thinks I'm bothering myself with something cool.
Well I'll be damned! This is certainly amazing! Couldn't play all the available missions yet, but I've watched them all in Jayborino's channel, can't wait for the release of the remaining ones to complete this Act.
Whoa!! Finally got to play Mission 1 and Mission 2 on the Arcade. It was so good!! Awesome gameplay and I am loving the story.
My only complaint is the transmission sound that is made when the character are talking it so annoying!! The green pop-up thing I think is good enough!!!
Anyways!!! SO awesome dude. Very good work and looking forward to the rest of the campaign and where you take us.
I've made review of your map, here :
Odyssey Review
@Bilxor: Go
Yeah, I do go overboard with the doodads. Half these missions have above 9000 doodads. It's actually a medical condition called Doodad Fetish. Completely beyond my control. What is not beyond my control is the ability to start a campaign from mission 1:)
@CatOnCan: Go
Thanks for that. I did take too long to release mission 10 but it's here now indeed. If you dealt easily with the artillery attacks is because you were paying attention. A lot of players won't. The mechanic behind it depends more on the person playing rather than how it works. The way you suggest is nice and I'll surely use it on a later mission.
Hey cool campaign but you went way overboard on the doodads (I played mission 8, not sure if they're all like this). I was getting about 10 frames a second. Not impossible to play, just way too many in my opinion.
Celebration! Finally I could play Mission 10: Outrunning death, been checking in regularly, awaiting the fix for that shitty 3.0 Patch.
As usual it was pretty much flawless in my opinion. Perhaps it was the best one so far, great work again CooperHawkes. If I were to change something, it might be something related to the blocking of the artillery targeting, I found that part a bit too easy. Having main command center grouped made it very easy to interupt the artillery.
Perhaps there could be a cloaked targeting beacon spawned somewhere near the targetzone which you needed to detect and destroy within a time limit? Just an idea if you want it.
Anyway, I suppose you might feel discouraged by the 3.0 patch being such a pain. I do however hope you keep making these maps, as they are vastly entertaining.
Keep it up!
@Terhonator: Go
Hey, hey!
The safety area behind rocks isn't displayed but your units do get the behavior flag on them when within it.
The part with the Gunships does require good micro but getting the seeker missiles on cooldown would just allow a lot of people to complete that part by waiting for the cooldown instead of improving their gameplay.
Those errors do show up when certain units or doodads are used. Seems like something out of our control but doesn't affect the mission.
@packiecraft: Go
Thanks, brother!
Hey. I played your campaign first time. I played on normal. Some feedback:
Mission1, Part1:
- I liked how camera came down from space to planet
- It was bit unclear how big area is safe behind rocks
Mission1, Part2:
- I really liked the idea that you can switch weapons. (I am interested about this technically so I will inspect the map later)
- I lost the map because Im was too lazy to micro my units, I used only long range weapons. I would like to replay this with easy / lazy difficulty. For us lazy players nano repair would be good idea so ships can heal each other.
- As always, I hate abilities with charges. I recommend to replace with cooldown. Player does not know should he save or use charges for something. I used only one missile because it had quite short range.
In general the mission was good quality so I dont have to rant about things :)
EDIT: Got some errors in editor when I opened the map.
Sweet! I'm a huge fan of your work and how do you make every mission unique. One of the best custom campaigns I've played so far. Keep up the good work CooperHawkes, Cheers from Chile!
@CooperHawkesOdyssey: Go
Ahh, I see. Thanks for letting me know!
@Giomancer: Go
All missions were uploaded under Other as the Arcade didn't have a single player section before Legacy. Missions 1-3 are under single because they've been fixed for patch 3.0. Missions 4-10 are still to be corrected when I manage the time.
Came across Mission 1 in the Single Player section of the Arcade, but noticed that missions 4+ are filed under "Other".. is this on purpose?
@CatOnCan: Go
I have a friend that puts the logo on the loading screens and does tinkering with the images for buttons and hero icons. All else, is a one man operation. Thank you for your words, my friend. That particular chat has already been fixed but not uploaded yet.
Created a profile purely because of this campaign. One of, if not the best campaign I've played so far! To CooperHawkesOdyssey and anyone else working on the campaign, you have done extremely well and I hope you keep working on this project. Please know that its greatly appreciated!
Minor chat detail to be fixed: at 4.05 in the vid of mission 9. Sam says: Consider done! I suppose it should be: Consider it done!
The fact that I'm even mentioning such a minute detail really underlines how well created this is so far.
@Captain_Kaos: Go
Mission 9 is in the Arcade and mission 10 isn't anywhere yet but should be on Youtube tomorrow. Both missions will be uploaded here in a few days along with a small update to all missions.
wheres episode 9&10? I cant see the download link here, or is it in the arcade?
@CooperHawkesOdyssey: Go
Haha, I realize that waiting for Annihilation for so long, even when I know he's looking forward to playing it, would be a little tough. I know that he likes to showcase these things blind too, so I figure letting him play what is completed would be just fine to give him some additional 3 weeks of content to Plan! :)
He should be aware that he by no means don't have to wait if he wants to play!
@CooperHawkesOdyssey: Go
A lot of my viewers seem to have a hard-on for those crappy, old SC1 expansions, Insurrection and Retribution, so I'll probably go ahead and pick those up after Aureolin Eclipse. After I finish Frozen Throne on the 'off days' I'll probably use those days to get back to SC2 stuff. Looking forward to these!