Warcraft III: Dawn of Chaos Mod - Realm Designs Q&A

Realm Design is a team of 3D artists, programmers, voice actors and story-writers hosted by Star Alliance (Samods). Realm Design is currently developing a total conversion titled: Warcraft: Dawn of Chaos.  It attempts to replicate Warcraft: Orcs and Humans to the point it won’t look like Warcraft III.  Everything including: units, buildings, tilesets, doodads, and interface will be converted to look like Warcraft: Orcs and Humans in 3D.  The team will also include few cinematics of their own and voice acting.

Medievaldragon
Who are the leaders of Realm Design Team?

Tarnis Skullpitter
Skullpitter. John Drake and I own Realm Design.

Medievaldragon
Is Dawn of Chaos mod a total conversion to Warcraft: Orcs and Humans?

Tarnis Skullpitter
That’s the essential conceit. However the levels are mostly expanded, particularly the later ones. It’s more of an enhanced remake in that it goes for more story and more varied gameplay. All the units and buildings are freshly remade, as well as the interface, tilesets, and any other art, to the point where there is nearly nothing from Warcraft III left. All cinematics and units are voice-acted.

Medievaldragon
Interesting. does Blizzard know of this project? If not, do you think they would try to stop it—since it is trying to duplicate WC1?

Tarnis Skullpitter
Blizzard probably has no real knowledge of the project’s existence, but first of all, it is remaking a game no longer on the market in any way (considered abandonware) and it ALSO requires the purchase of two of their current products for it to work, so they aren’t losing anything.  Blizzard is mostly supportive of mods anyway.

Medievaldragon
who is writing the story? And who is involved in 3D models and effects?

Tarnis Skullpitter
The story, as well as the dialogue in all the cinematics, and the tooltips, and in-game text, and much of the unit soundset dialogue is written by me. The modeling is a shared responsibility. We have about ten people who have contributed to the project at this point with models and model edits. John Drake is the most prolific one, editing and fixing models for our use.  A lot of Human buildings were modeled by Challis, and we have many pieces from STURMGuy, Xaran Alamas, Albiino-I, and Whitehorn as well, along with a bunch of others.  We have a lot of model skinners as well, with John contributing to a lot of it.

Medievaldragon
Whats the homepage URL?

Tarnis Skullpitter
https://realmdesign.samods.org/projects/wc3/tdc/index.htm
https://realmdesign.samods.org

Medievaldragon
When did the project start, how much percent of the project has been completed, and can you estimate when the mod might be released? late-2006, early 2007?

Tarnis Skullpitter
The project started not quite two years ago, and has been hampered by a few unfortunate coincidences (such as members needing time off and Warcraft 3 Campaigns going down for an extended period of time). I wouldn’t dare speculate on a release date except to say that a comprehensive demo isn’t far in the future.  Our ‘site’ is here: https://realmdesign.samods.org/.  It’ll be heavily updated soon as it currently has little or no content.  The project is extremely well along with most of the modeling and skinning completed at long last.

Medievaldragon
Chronologically, when is the storyline of the mod set?

Tarnis Skullpitter
The early cinematics will cover the early days of the First War, including the sixteen years of Orcish presence in Azeroth before Warcraft: Orcs and Humans takes place. It then covers roughly five years of war and the final cinematic ends with the arrival of the last of the survivors on the shores of Lordaeron.  Essentially the period between the Orcish invasion and the beginning of Warcraft II.

Medievaldragon
I see some lore issues. According to Warcraft RPG: Lands of Conflict timeline, medivh opened a tiny portal 5 years before the invasion. The portal took 5 years to open with Gul’dan’s spellwork from Draenor’s side.

Tarnis Skullpitter
We have a particularly snarky approach to the current state of Warcraft lore. We tend to assume that, unless current changes to continuity seem better suited to telling a good story, that the early explanations hold more water. As Warcraft I asserted a certain timeframe that seemed much more reasonable we have chosen to go with it. Although we rarely directly contradict the current storylines or events.  We do make conscious decisions when it comes to what we think has been retconned badly or handled poorly, and there is a lot of that.

Medievaldragon
? 0
Orc scouts enter the Portal and begin exploring for a settlement area. They construct a small outpost in the uninhabited marshlands known as the Black Morass.

Tarnis Skullpitter
Just a moment and I’ll refute that
From the Warcraft I story: 583 is the year the Orcs invade and kill King Wrynn. 584 is the year Llane is proclaimed king.  599 is the year Warcraft I takes place.  The storyline was unfairly compressed recently, and we consider that no more artistic than ‘Troy’ compressing the Trojan war from 7 years to one week.

Medievaldragon
I have the WC1 manual—=) My point of view is based on the retcon. Actually, my timeline quote came from World of Warcraft RPG corebook (White Wolf Publishing)

Tarnis Skullpitter
The main reason for our stance is that while many elements of Warcraft III and World of Warcraft are charming, many are ridiculously bad and actually harm the story or cheapen it. We try to select the elements that tell the best story possible; and we don’t have trouble sleeping at night because of it, since Blizzard can’t make up their mind, so we don’t mind making our own order of events

Medievaldragon
I agree, the timeline was unnecesarily compressed. Making Garona being half-human hard.

Tarnis Skullpitter
Extremely.  It was -just- possibly previously, and now it’s impossible.  Added to the fact that King Llane’s father appears to have been vaporized 😎

Medievaldragon
Do you need more staff to work on Dawn of Chaos mod or are you complete as a team?

Tarnis Skullpitter
We could always use people to help model and skin, and particularly animate. We have an excellent concept artist.  We are moving towards securing a new composer.  We’re just fine for writing, and we’re equally secure for triggerers. Our team is committed and productive, but we can always use new artists for modelling and skinning.

Medievaldragon
Are there going to be some WC1 heroes in your mod? Such as Blackhand, Lothar, Medivh, Khadgar?

Tarnis Skullpitter
– takes a deep breath-
Lothar, Uther, Turalyon, Khadgar, Llane, Wrynn, Lady Varia, Garona, Doomhammer, Medivh, Aegwynn, Blackhand, Rend, Maim, Kilrogg, Fenris, Alonsus Faol, Turok, Cho’gall, Gul’dan, Nekros, Zuluhed, Teron Gorefiend … etc.  Everybody relevant really.

Medievaldragon
Sounds cool.  Will you show cinematics of Medivh opening the Dark Portal?

Tarnis Skullpitter
Our cinematics will work this way: The original WCI intro remade. A large intro displaying the overall backstory. Each campaign will have a separate racial backstory. Then cinematics for every third level.  And two endings. And then a ‘real’ ending. The entire relevant story will be told in all its glory, including the Orcish origins, the portal, etc.

Medievaldragon
I bet writing the lore to make sense, and to keep track of known chronological events has been a nightmare for you to write?

Tarnis Skullpitter
It can be. I try to stay within the original lines, keeping the elements from later works that are not directly contradictory, and making everything fit in the best possible way.  For example, Mannoroth and Kil’jaeden remain the corrupters of the Orcs, but they were never really ‘peaceful’ before that. That’s just not a supportable premise. And as for the new Draenei stuff…  It’s just a matter of what the best, coolest, most intriguing story is. And trying to make sure it can still fit.

Medievaldragon
Well, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans (WC1) isnt affected much chronologically with the Eredar-Draenei stuff retconned recently. I still can’t digest Sargeras arrived to Argus 25,000 years ago. Thats about the time the Azi’Aqir insectoids fought the trolls. The Geologist Larksbane at Cenarion Hold says the crystal of Roman’khan— the emisarry of the Ahn’Qiraj—has 20,000 years of history recorded within.  The Titans arrived to Azeroth (-147,000) and departed Azeroth (-64,001).  Where was Sargeras all that time until (-25,000)?  Makes no sense.

Tarnis Skullpitter
My problem is this: The original premise was that Sargeras was corrupted by the evil of the Eredar because as a pure being his mind was unable to comprehend total evil. That was a neat psychological story. The current iteration has Sargeras corrupting THEM. That’s just another of Blizzard’s new “ABSOLUTELY NOBODY IS EVIL” philosophy, and that’s the stuff we take issue with.  That more or less tells you the sort of things we ‘ignore’ from the new lore for the story of our mod: Dawn of Chaos.