Fires of Hearthwood
The Fires of Hearthwood is a Warcraft III Editor custom map that takes place right after an orc invasion has beset the peaceful village of Hearthwood. With so many orcs attacking, your only hope is to recruit the townspeople into a fighting force capable of fighting back. Play as Captain Haynes and his trusted soldiers to reclaim Hearthwood and drive out the orcish horde.
Engine
Warcraft Editor
Contributions
Level Design
Set Design
In-Editor Scripting
Gameplay Balance
Given the unique story that The Fires of Hearthwood tells, traditional unit stats could not be used to convey the proper experience. To balance everything, consistent playtesting was done to ensure that the militia, footsoldiers, and hero all felt like vastly different strengths; all while keeping the orcs an intimidating threat. Item placement also played a substantial role in player survivability.
Unique Abilities
With the militia being much weaker than the enemy, the hero’s abilities were carefully crafted to offer a give and take of power/defense. These abilities, Taunt and Berserk, play off of one another based on the situation. Berserk hurts the player for a damage boost, while Taunt pulls enemies off of other units. With proper planning, the player can deal maximum damage while keeping their units alive to benefit from their third ability, command aura, which increases value with each unit affected.
Militia
Players may recognize the militia as a buff for the human builder units. However, in this map, they are the player's only standard unit. Adding the risk/reward element of the level, each militia member is guarded by enemies that almost make them not worth rescuing. Yet, without them, the player has no hope of gathering their forces for the final push against the boss. Weak alone, strong together.
Beryl and Mire
Originally the two guards that came with the player’s hero were meant as supplemental forces. However, it was important to find a way to keep the player powered up even if they are at an early game disadvantage with one of their two footsoldiers dying. As such, stat changes, buffs, and items were applied to the two troops in order to maintain a certain level of power. The personalities were just a plus!
Outdoor Dungeon
One difficult element was to make an outdoor location feel like a dungeon. Most Blizzard maps that play like dungeon-crawlers tend to be in caves or rigid cities. Finding the proper spacing and size of a small village using mostly buildings as obstacles while still being able to see around them was a must.
