SC2Mapster

In reply to Jayborino:

Seems like I just appreciate everyone all the time here, but I genuinely appreciate you and others taking the time to write down some thoughts on all this. I guess I'll smell my own farts a bit and talk about some behind-the-scenes here if anyone cares.

Quote from Jayborino>>

Everything after Mission 9 felt like a nonstop ride; a train careening towards a cliff and never letting up.  While the ending was satisfying, everything leading up to it really set a morbid tone and I fully expected these units to get wiped out to at least save this relatively small group of sick civilians.  You could have really ended it miserably and it would have been just as realistic, but I'm also happy you didn't!

 

Now, in terms of the overall structure, I want to point out why the first and second halves compliment themselves so well, each straddling Mission 9.

 

The first half feels very structured, with defined objectives, clean and concise intel, and with aerial recon available.  There was a clear chain of command and separate groups within the 32nd carrying out operations that worked in tandem towards defined victory.  Our faction is at the height of our power and resources rarely become an issue as we creep across Raydin III towards the capital building and build upon our army.

 

Then, the bomb drops and complete chaos ensues.  TRS becomes stranded, is forced to euthanize their remaining support crew and run out of supplies.  The 32nd presumes them MIA, some thinking they deserted.  All mores within the city break down as Jack engages stranded 32nd troops when they fire on him then chooses to join a KMC unit to simply survive as the walls close in.  Corona desperately tries to re-establish some type of order, being only mildly successful after wandering the city and escorting deeply sick civilians to a barely functional aid station.  All of the resources from Map 10 onwards are rolling via bank data, ensuring the player thinks about the chaining consequences of everything they build because there is never an excess of minerals on any map after that.

 

At this point, every step forward feels like clawing at survival in contrast to fulfilling pieces of a plan for victory in the first half.  I believe the second half would not be nearly as impactful without the tone of organized, military precision in the first half.  This campaign is quite unique as it incorporates both of these and they strengthen each other when looking at it as a whole.

 

Most campaigns, including the vanilla games, tend to include only that organized victory mood; there may be some narrative twists and character deaths, but every mission has an ending where you distinctly win and make your overall situation better because of it.  Blizzard's example of creating contrast is the first mission of LotV highlighting the Protoss at the height of their power, then brought low and having to build back up - many games do something like this early as a narrative hook.

 

What Quagmire does differently though, is have this moment occur past the midway point and then it's just the bare minimum of survival every mission.  No reorganization, no 'victory' anymore.  It conveys a sense of realism in the face of disaster like a nuclear explosion or natural disaster where sometimes your government and institutions will not swoop in to pick up the pieces; instead they may just try to kill you to cover up their failings that caused it because you're actually nothing to them except bad PR.

To cap it all off, the last mission is quite cathartic as you wipe all these asshole factions off the map with the help of Leeds crashing in with air support and a giant Battlecruiser after 4 missions of absolute misery preceding it.  Nice ties-ins with other existing lore as well to give these folks an unexpectedly decent outlook and ending.

 

So, to wrap up, I would revisit my original point.  I did have gameplay issues that subjectively lessened some minute experiences like the 3rd person camera and lighting, having to babysit near-worthless hero units at times, and the occasional mission that starts feeling a bit too long.  It's imperfect with design flaws, though I also realize the second half has not had much or any public testing yet so it's a WIP. 

How dare you?

While I think I put about a 50/50 emphasis on gameplay/story, the focus was more heavily on story and atmosphere on the later maps as I was trying to sort out all the details and admittedly I didn't put that much time into refining the gameplay in comparison. I did run a bunch of tests and I did a playthrough on hard difficulty close to 1.0, but obviously that's not remotely the same as someone else playing it.

So I'll just be waiting on some feedback on especially those later missions and possibly tweak them accordingly, if possible. Actually seeing someone else play is of course the best form of feedback.

What overrides all of this for me is a holistic storytelling experience that was extremely gripping throughout with new and diverse ways enmeshed in the gameplay and interestingly written characters all with their own dialogue mannerisms to deliver it.  Ultimately, the unpolished stuff can be improved upon if you feel like it, but the overall package is already there and it's great.

 

I would describe the campaign as a whole as gritty and somber, yet also cleverly topical and compelling.  Rare stuff for a community campaign, or video game in general, to even try to be thought-provoking and you succeeded for me!

That's great to hear! Of course the story draws from reality as well and my bleak worldview seeps through in some way, but as a bit of exciting trivia I had many of the major plot points and a lot of the overall story figured out in early 2015.

Still, up until the very end this weird chain of events was a jumbled mess in my head and I think I wrote most scenes in no particular order on coffee breaks at the office, so I'm quite happy with how it turned out, and happy that it works for others as well.

[edit: redacted mostly unrelated goofy half-drunk story with potential to be misinterpreted]

I do need to credit a bunch of people, my cousin aka Anttehoo, the SCMR crew, Kostyarik, Telenil etc. for a lot of the groundwork even if they weren't directly involved. Thanks to the couple of people including Deltron,  TChosenOne, VisionsofKhas who played the early versions for providing that feedback to work with, was definitely helpful. Credit to Alleyviper and Supernova in particular for most of the awesome models that inspired a bunch of custom units. We did it, everyone!

Anyway, I am envisioning some small enhancements and additions to the gameplay side of things, maybe trying to flesh out the Combine and Pirate factions and putting more work into the AI. Reworking some aspects of certain maps is on the table as well, we'll see. Interested to see the rest of your playthrough and how it all plays out!

EDIT: Random story questions.  I'm not sure which of the thing listed below are supposed to be intentionally vague or if I've missed something, so maybe someone can help me out:

Was Barragni brought out by the Marauder to be executed, or rescued?  If rescued, are we meant to recognize the circumstances?  Was there more to Edgar Pita and was it implied there was more to him in general beyond being a powerful psionic?  I feel like he's probably referenced in some part of SC lore that I've never seen.  Is Dag Giggum becoming the deputy under Raynor supposed to mean he is actually another character in future SC lore?  Basically, I got the inkling I should have been making more connections, but failed to do so as I'm not too familiar with any SC extended universe stuff.

In reply to visionsofkhas:

Quote from visionsofkhas >>

In reply to karlprojektorinski:

Regarding the epilogue: 

 Ahhh, okay. I missed that Edgar Pita was a psychic. That clears up my confusion. I was under the impression that The Man In Mayan Blue was somewhere in the vicinity when that scene took place, whom I had assumed to be psychic himself due to the FX on Agria. 

 

In reply to Jayborino:

 I don't have anything too specific, I guess the main thing is to be cost-effective. If you can afford it, you can buy more time by building multiple aid stations, but you shouldn't need to rush things either way.

That said, the first section is relatively quick compared to the second - no real benefit from hanging around too long.

Here's a secret: the ghosts at the start kinda give the wrong impression, they shouldn't bother you too much in the later stages.

In reply to visionsofkhas:

Quote from visionsofkhas>>

This campaign has been... amazing. I utterly love what you've done with the story, the game mechanics, the map design. The latter half, especially; from Nuketown onward, I've been at the edge of my seat. 

Hey, glad to find you've revisited and finished the campaign! Those last few maps haven't seen a ton of testing, so I'm also happy to hear it wasn't a frustrating waste of time, either.

In the final mission, I've noticed my units pass through some doodads, especially in the north-western base. You may want to do another pass to add pathing blockers. Also, there's a tunnel leading to one of the entrances the makes it difficult to see if I'm being attacked from that vector. Is that an intentional "Fog of War" aspect? Also, it's a little awkward when my aerial units move through skyscrapers in that mission, so that might be another thing you'll look into with regards to pathing. 

Yeah this sounds like something I would overlook, a bunch of maps have had this problem. Thanks for the heads up, I'll try to sort that out. The tunnel's intentional - it's basically a coincidence that it's even there, there's no deliberation behind it. I'll take another look at it.

Also, will you be continuing on with any of these characters in future stories? What of the Man in Mayan Blue? I'd like to see where they go from here. :D

I honestly don't know. No plans for anything as of right now. Something like a cameo might be more likely, if anything. I'd have to do something smaller - I do enjoy creating this stuff, the problem is it ends up taking years.

Thanks again for an amazing game -- and I did NOT expect the shoutout in the credits, thanks you. Take care! 

Well of course. Not too many people play these things, so I do appreciate your early feedback - that's always important. Thanks for playing!

EDIT Waaait a minute... Is Dag Giggum (or Kaiser)... are they actually -- ???

???

I am unaware of any activity or operation you might be thinking of, nor would I be disposed to discuss such matters if I did in fact possess information pertaining to this subject.

In reply to Forge_User_20026670:

 Thanks for letting me know. Did you happen to save/load during the map by any chance? I recall something similar happening to me once or twice, I think it was specifically after I'd loaded a save of the map.

I took a quick look at the script, and everything looks seemingly ok - apparently it just sometimes refuses to work properly for some reason. I'll try to investigate...

In reply to Jayborino:

 Yeesh. Sorry about that. I'll look into it.

This page works for me.

In reply to Jayborino:

I had a feeling this wouldn't be your favorite map... I think you'll be thrilled to hear I'm envisioning an additional mechanic where each shot has a chance to trigger an explosion at the impact point, dealing a little extra splash damage. Odds would be based on weapon damage, and damage from the explosion would be mitigated by armor. This'll provide a new exciting element to the map with more emphasis on mech as well as spotting and engaging targets first! I ran a quick test and most importantly it looks and sounds pretty cool.

The map is heavy on multitasking and I imagine many people might not like it. The separate income for the two bases makes more sense narratively, but it's also there to ensure the player can't neglect either base and only use it to fund the other. The lack of air units also serves this purpose. The heroes... I guess you could consider as a little bit of extra utility / base defense. It's not my intention to make the player lean on them too much on this map. Trickster with his cliff-jumping abilities is a pretty exciting element here, I think.

I'll try to do something about 4 and 7. You could argue that poor visibility as a premise in an RTS is a bad idea in itself, but that's what I did so now I feel like if I'm trying to sell that idea I can't have things always be, you know, clearly visible. It's also an excuse, if a flimsy one, to not have air units on the map. The main problem to me seems to be that it's sometimes difficult to distinguish cliffs. I'll try to mitigate this with some terraining tricks.

I'll grant that running around building refineries is just a chore, I'll reduce the number of geysers and increase their vespene amounts.

Thanks for the feedback.

In reply to Jayborino:

 I think I get where you're coming from, I can see how the fact alone that sometimes you can't see what's going on would piss people off. I've been putting some terrain work into the map since the latest published version and I hope that it'll make a difference. The help popup about the gas explosions does make it seem like a bigger deal than it actually is, it's just more of a hassle to keep looking for new geysers.

Me, I'm constantly getting my VIP units killed so I can relate. I like to always try to stay active on the map and do more with less, to the point where it becomes a weakness.

Another small update! Quag v1.02 is now available. Changes listed on the download page.

To update from previous release versions, simply replace files.