Return from the Abyss [SP campaign for 1.12/1.14]

[Graziani]

Hi, I almost finished the campaign (I'm at Die is cast) and I loved this campaign.

What I liked is that you really feel like you're experiencing a great adventure, like in UTBS for example. We start with a catastrophic situation and a total defeat. We become friends with the dwarves, but these dear dwarves are both our saviors and our tormentors. We live with the dunefolk their lack of light, we would like to get them out of these caves as soon as possible! The return to the desert lands is absolutely well done, with this underlying threat posed by the religious extremists who seem to have spread throughout the continent. I really vibed alongside Khafir and his friends until the end, and I loved the reunion with the father in this strange place that are the sewers.

And the two dwarves. Ha! Brilliant . With their little accompanying music. I love those two! They are not warriors. They do not judge the humans who fled the dwarven kingdom. They are two explorers, two friends, who have seen it all, who do what they are asked with warmth (and professionalism!) and the chemistry between them is perfect. When they blow up the walls of the sewers, I expected it to be a mistake on their part, but no, they had everything planned and arrived at just the right time!

Regarding the gameplay, I would say that the campaign is extremely varied with very different situations occurring extremely regularly (exploration of the sewers, prisoners guarded by the merfolk with explorable underground, the double map of Battle at the border, the fortress to hold against the monsters in the depths of the dwarven realms with their burrows to close etc...).
In relation to this, I find it successful and it's what allowed me to hold on throughout the campaign, stimulating my interest.

However, I would say that I often found certain scenarios too difficult, the expert level is definitly justified.
I would also say that the first levels outside the lands of the dwarves, orcish territory and orcs strike back, are so large, violent, intense that I almost stopped the campaign, thinking that the rest of the campaign would be like this all along. These were two extremely long/difficult/massive scenarios with a huge number of units. Which does not diminish the strategic interest they offered, but because they were following each other, I clearly remember that when the scenario orcs strike back started, I almost stopped halfway through because of the magnitude of the battle. That's also why I haven't finished the last level yet (the defenders have so many units !!).

Concerning the dialogs, sometimes you get very few lines in entire scenarios and sometimes you get the exact opposite, I felt sometimes this mass of information can be confusing. Apart this, it is very well written, a beautiful story.

Anyway, apart from a few exceptions, I really felt that each scenario offered different mechanics and stakes and it was very pleasant.

I would say that the additional music matches completely with the campaign, to the point that when original game tracks are played, it seems disconnected from the emotional/narrative stakes that are unfolding.

In the scenario Familiar Landscape, the eagle speaks. This is probably the case elsewhere as well. I think that rather than correcting all the events of the campaign (I saw that other people had reported the same problem), a simple macro could do the trick (if it's not already the case).

Perdon my poor english, and thanks for your work !

Yes, huge thanks for this memorable adventure I'm gonna play your other creations.

[skeptical_troll]

Hi! Thanks for taking the time to write your detailed impressions of the campaign, it really made my day! I guess I still feel attached to it after years of publishing it. I'm glad you enjoyed it despite the length and challenge of some of the levels, I kind of agree its main limitation is that some scenarios drag a bit or are a bit packed with dialog/info dump, but I'm not brave enough to undertake a massive overhaul and risk making it worse. Besides that being a lot of work, of course

In the scenario Familiar Landscape, the eagle speaks.

damn I thought I did put filters for that, but apparently I missed some of them. Part of the issue was that I wasn't too careful about keeping the poor bird alive for more than a couple of scenarios while doing the playtesting
Hope you successfully finish the last battle!

[Lord-Knightmare]

In 1.18, I downloaded your addon. There is this RFTA_Music addon but it's not listed as a dependency. Is this intentional?

[skeptical_troll]

No, it isn't intentional My previous laptop broke and lost the server file so I had to re-write it and forgot about dependencies (the same happened with TWLP). Thanks for reporting it!

[Konrad2]

No, it isn't intentional My previous laptop broke and lost the server file so I had to re-write it and forgot about dependencies (the same happened with TWLP). Thanks for reporting it!

You seem to have pushed a fix 20 min ago, but the new add-ons still have the music depencies and no music on the server. :c

[skeptical_troll]

Yeah, matching the name of the dependency and the music add-on took me more than it should. Hopefully it works now.