Any chance for co-op campaign?

General Discussion
41

Warcraft 3 was build for co-op either missions or campaigns. The only question is does Blizzard commit resources to making it happen or do they give some BS excuse in the name of skimming as much profit from this money grab as possible?

42

There are maps that do this, but honestly i wish blizzard would put it in themselves. though playing Campaign levels against each other sounds awesome too.

43

lol you want co-op campaign cuz you too bad

44

This is a good idea for post-launch updates. A similar idea has been working for StarCraft 2, so odds are good they will take inspirations from there, if such were to happen.

Supported! :raised_hands:

45

thrall and grom controls 2 different clans.

2 Likes
46

But the orc clans vary very little in tech and army composition in-game. Having a troll or tauren commander like Vol’jin or Cairne makes more sense for creating a unique feeling army.
Thrall and Grom aren’t very different beyond one favouring maybe grunts and shamans vs a raider heavy style.

2 Likes
47

Just to understand more clearly which one we are talking about~~

Are we talking about a co-op mode where players choose “Commanders” of all kinds which specialize your army in a thematic way (like the one in StarCraft 2)? Or a co-op mode that allows you to play existing ROC and TFT campaigns with a friend?

1 Like
48

One or the other or both. Both would be ideal.
If forced to choose I’d go with the SC2-style co-op over the campaigns all co-op.

49

COOP is possible imo, like that mission with Grom Hellscream and attacking human bases in Kalimdor

50

The problem I have with co-op with the main campaign is that there isn’t enough to do. The missions are pretty linear, the level design is made for one-army to go through, and the resources are finite and limited. You’re basically playing Archon Mode, and that’s the extent of your fun.

Co-op missions ala SC2 Commanders is designed for the co-op experience. There are multiple ways to achieve objectives, multiple subquests, and the levels are open sandboxes that allow the player to choose where to make their stand.

So I’d actually want missions turned into SC2 style Co-op commander rather than just tacking another player into the existing campaign. There really isn’t much for a second player to do in some of the missions like ‘Kill X number of pigs’ or ‘Take your army to point B’ when it’s already designed for one player to do all the micro.

51

It could still be a good way for couples/casuals to enjoy all the campaigns together and learn the WoW lore and units. Community could probably make these maps, like the maps on HIVE workshop for oldschool Warcraft 3.

I just hope mapping community will consider 3-4 player coop campaign if that is the case, with otherwise minimal changes. Maybe force each map to use the Hard AI and permit a /handicap 1 to /handicap 100 command that multiplies your shared units’ hit points with 1% to 100% for added difficulty tweaking.

Single unit missions could perhaps have a story appropriate minor unit for other players to control early on while they have no other units shared, like a spirit wolf during the Thrall tutorial missions or a High Elf priest, etc. Teleporting in after a bit when game starts or they are stuck with no units again; if main hero dies the mission fails as normal.

Hoping also the missions from the old Warcraft 3 demo will be added to the Prologue campaign, so we have the voices for its latter missions (the Frozen Throne variants of these do not have voices). Fingers crossed; the WC3 community never disappoints!

wowwiki fandom com /wiki/Exodus_of_the_Horde

Items and skills must also be stored across missions somehow, with possibility to clear items and respec skills from an appropriate hero level; the SC2 Wings of Liberty coop campaign managed to do most of this but maybe the older WC3 engine needs different tweaks for this.

hiveworkshop com /threads/starcraft-ii-wings-of-liberty-coop.300681/

1 Like
52

I too would love a Co-op Campaign. I hope they do this. Playing with family and friends would be awesome and a great way to share the WarCraft experience!

2 Likes
53

Age of Empires Online did this, it was a MMORTS, it’s active under Project Celeste and free to play now. Blizzard could implement this style with paid services tho, like skins, expansions campaigns and add-ons for WoW Story line or a WarCraft Chronicle series that adds older but revamped Orcs and Humans and WCII campaigns. A lot of possibilities with Co-op Campaign and a MMORTS theme.

1 Like
54

Any news about this?

55

great idea. me and my son def. would play

56

I once started a project to transform the WC3 ROC/FT in a 3-player co-op experience. It was primarily for me, my cousin and brother to play together. We have had great experiences with WC3.

I wanted to take the existing experience and transform it into a coop experience. As such, I didn’t want to change the existing map too much. For example, your base usually has only 1 Gold mine and I didn’t want to make that 3 gold mines. I tried to find a way for three players to share 1 gold mine. I drew my inspiration from Halo Wars. In this game you share all your units and your base. Likewise, the maps were build for the single player experience, unlike red alert 3 for example, which has its maps build with coop in mind.

As such, I managed to build a set of triggers and making use of in-game features that allow me to create a coop experience as follows:

What works:

  • There are “four players” in the game. Three human players and one shared base player that can be controlled by all three human players.
  • All resources are shared. A window at the top right of the screen will show the gold/wood/unit count for each player. Each player, including the shared base, has its own gold/wood stash.
  • The shared base allows players to collect resources. A peasant collecting gold for example will collect 10 gold divided by the amount of players + the shared base. As such, each stash will get 2.5 gold for each collection. The same applies for wood. The players do not share the unit cap (at this moment).
  • All building are shared. The only building that deviates is the altar. It is required for each player to have an altar to restore their hero. In addition, the Altar has gained more functions. It allows players to deposit/withdraw gold/wood from the shared stash to their own stash. The altar also has the function to turn on/off the participation in the resource distribution. If a player turns it off, the resources will be distributed among the other players equally. The shared base will always receive resources.
  • Any unit trained from any building is owned by only that player. The exception are construction units, such as peasants, which are owned by the shared base player, and are therefor controllable by each player. The cost of the units constructed will be deducted from the corresponding player.
  • As one building can only train one unit at a time, this too is shared. If player 1 creates a footman in the barracks and player 2 creates a footman as well, then the footman of player 2 will be placed in queue behind the footman of player 1.
  • Each player has the option to create a personal construction unit, such as a peasant, from the shared town hall. This construction unit will function as normal and only for that player. Any resources collected with those construction unit will only be for that player. Players are therefor able to construct their own basis if they wish to.
  • Any research done by any player is shared with all players. This includes any research done by the “shared base player”. You can therefor use the shared base resource stash for research for example.
  • I have added a working hero selection screen. You won’t be forced to always play with a certain hero. Each player has its own Hero.
  • Saving between maps is supported using a transfer code. This code always consists of 20 characters and transfers the following information:
    • Hero used
    • Level
    • Skill distribution
    • Items
    • Permanent upgrade collected, such as tome of strength.
    • Actual experience. (Experience bar is thus restored at the start of each map.)
  • In case a player selects a different hero in the next map, everything is still saved with the exception of the skill distribution.
  • I have modified all playable units in order to get this to work. (Modifications that have no direct bearing on the playability. For example, damage and health and such are unchanged.)

Ideas:

  • Balancing – I believe the campaign play will be balanced with the following trade-off. In reality I have no idea. Testing will point this out.
    • The coop features will require the different players to carefully manage their shared resources. One player cannot finish the mission on their own with only 1/4th of the resources available at any given time. Resource management will be a difficult thing to do.
    • Each player has its own hero. So at any given time a maximum of three hero’s will be under the control of the players instead of maximum two.
    • I will force the campaign to be played at hard mode.
  • Custom hero’s – I am trying to implement lore-friendly hero’s. This will be required to some extend to allow each player to have a hero. When Purging Stratholm for example, only Arthars is there to kill his own people. I could add the captain as a second hero, but I will still be lacking one final hero. I did create a few hero’s, but they were depended on the old models. With the release of the reforged version, I will have to find an alternative.
  • Co-op element – I am looking to include funny coop elements in the single player campaign. Such as, for example, being able to revive ally hero’s in maps where you have no base. Or introducing coop elements in the puzzles of the game. To be explored.

I’ve spend most of my time on building the triggers and custom hero’s. I haven’t actually modified any campaign map yet. One of my biggest barriers is the copy/paste process that is required. I have to manually copy/paste all modified units and triggers from the basic coop map unto each campaign map and this takes ages…. I cannot do a batch import as that overwrites all campaign modified units/triggers. I hope that in the reforged worldedit this is allowed, or that the copy/paste goes faster.

All in all, I am thinking of resurrecting this project. Would you guys be interested?