Abandonment (Campaign)
ABANDONMENT
"Abandonment" is a part of the Custom Campaign Initiative. Check it out!
Abandonment is a Terran campaign set on Ixion-4, a planet on the fringes of Dominion space. The Umoja Protectorate has had designs on the planet since the Brood War, but the Dominion military has kept a strong presence and fended off various plots of secession. The resurgence of Kerrigan and the Swarm has seen a massive influx of refugees onto Ixion-4. Sympathy for the Dominion has reached an all time low. Low-level insurgencies are raging across the planet with tacit support from the Umojans. Mercenaries have been called in to shore up the defenses of the Dominion, but their loyalty is always in question. Abandonment follows a group of elite Dominion soldiers as they try to hold onto Ixion-4 for the Dominion.
Why make a Campaign?
Abandonment is my 1st attempt at making a Starcraft Campaign. I started with zero experience with programming, story-building and art/design. It has been an arduous task, but one filled with a lot of reward.
Missions
I am aiming for an 8 mission campaign:
- Harbinger (Beta)
- Siege of Palmyra (Alpha!)
- The Walking Dead (Planning)
- Breaking Up
- The Ground Beneath You
- Raid Night
- Rooftops aren't so Romantic
- Abandonment
- Campaign Launcher (Planning)
FEEDBACK IS WANTED AND APPRECIATED
If you download my maps, please give me some feedback in the Abandonment Forum. If you find bugs, have story questions or just questions or critiques, please do tell!! I could really use all the help I can get! Don't hesitate even for the little stuff. Also, if you play other people's maps or campaigns, then please leave them feedback as well!
I've had to put my campaign on hold. Perhaps one day it will rise from the ashes, but Abandonment has been abandoned. :(
@LeonBennet: Go
Hey Leon,
Thanks for playing the Harbinger mission!! Yeah...terraining is pretty bad. It's my first map so I can't just chuck it!
I'm working on a prequel to the 1st mission to give better background to the characters. I ended up just modifying a Blizzard map because my Terraining is so bad!! I also just wanted to focus on story and gameplay and not terrain.
Thanks also for telling me about the ending being problematic. I though I had fixed it.
The first map wasn't bad at all. You have absolutely incredible cinematics. There was some sort of glitch in the ending cinematic, though. The Spectre character (I can't remember their names, they're really elaborate), didn't get in the ship and it took off without him. At first I thought it was intentional and actually really cool. The zerg killed him and I was like, "Whoa, they left him behind!"
But then it was mission failed :P
Anyways, I totally agree with everything DudkiSC2 said. The dialog was a little quick and I would say the writing is slightly weak. You have time to solidify your characters, however, if the campaign really is eight missions long, and it could pick up.
My biggest complaint was the terrain. It was pretty bad. The lack of quality terrain took me out of the zone and made it difficult to feel like I was in a quality custom campaign.
One slight sidenote. Change the name of the War Pig soldiers. It's clear you gave each of them a name. Just give them each a unique name. It would make the characters feel even more real.
I played the first mission of this, and I will just start of by saying good job. I actually quite enjoyed it. I have some points of interest:
First off, Cinematics - You did a really good job on those. Some of the waiting times were a bit long sometimes but you establish a really good scene and bring players into your map very well.
The transmissions sometimes goes a bit too fast and I had to go back into the message log to review what was being said. Might want to try and increase the timings on some of them. It wasn't too much of an issue, but there were a couple which ended quite fast.
The terrain obviously needs some work, but don't feel bad. Terraining is by far one of the hardest parts of map editing to master and takes a loong time to get good at. The terrain was not terrible though, but just add a little more diversity and variety in the textures and some more details and that'll be good.
I like how the story begins. You put players right in the middle of a Zerg infestation and that's a very nice to start things off. On top of that, the way the storyline continues through the mission is pretty good, and I was able to follow along with it nicely.
That's it for now. Keep up the good work :)
I would actually rather use the "Global Cinematics Setting" action. It is designed to adjust all variables like that cinematic-appropriate levels.
Love the advice. I couldn't figure out how to make the fog come back!
Took your map for a little test-drive. Got careless and was defeated during the escort back to Ogden. Will try to finish it soon.
First impressions:
Nice cinematics. It's a very story driven map and the writing is really good so far. Thumbs up there. I also really enjoy your choice of music. It's makes a great difference. Small sub-objectives like investigating those houses are a nice touch.
The terrain could do need some touch but that will come with experience.
One bug though. After the introduction cinematic to Aurelian the black mask is lifted and replaced with grey fog. I see in your triggers that you have used a visibility revealer which I don't think is the right choice here. During cinematics I prefer to use these triggers
After I Turn on Cinematic Mode before I fade in.
Visibility - Disable Black Mask visibility
Visibility - Disable Fog Of War visibility
After I've fade out during the cinematic but before I fade in in game mode
Visibility - Enable Black Mask visibility
Visibility - Enable Fog Of War visibility
This way you will keep the black mask after the cinematic.
Anyway, good work. Will try to finish this one of the coming days. Good luck with the follwing maps. :)
Looking forward to this :)