Weather

dtw · Post by **dtw** » October 9th, 2005, 5:50 pm

If anything weather should affect ranged attacks

nonobots · Post by **nonobots** » October 9th, 2005, 6:02 pm

I'm not sure it's such a good idea. Having animations and sounds for weather on top of the game would bother me. I'd want to be able to turn it off in the preferences - but if it has a game effect I wouldn't be able to.

I'm all for making the game more alive, but clouds and rain might be too much. As a special effect in a specific campaign to strengthen the mood, no problem. But automatic weather in all games?

I'd prefer to see little things added that would enhance the ambiance - but that would not affect gameplay. Animating the water, more (subtle) sounds, more idle animations, more interface themes to choose from, etc.

We already have a lot of stuff affecting gameplay, and they all merge together pretty well. time of day, terrain and units stats, abilities and traits are more than enough and there's still a lot of place inside those to expand. I'd prefer Wesnoth to build upon its strengths than to see it start off in new directions.

icen · Post by **icen** » October 9th, 2005, 7:17 pm

I think small changes in gameplay would be ok, the weather could change for a moment and after the rain stops it would not affect the gameplay anymore - it may only affect ranged weapons for like 2 rounds for example, like dibblethewrecker suggested. Just another nifty thing making the game more interesting (like day and night).

But if it will be incorporated as an ambience effect. I like it too. I don't know which option is better.

scott · Post by **scott** » October 11th, 2005, 2:40 pm

Edit: this is an answer to the post below me

Not much. You can define any bonus for a time of day (TOD), but the bonus will always be symmetric for lawfuls/chaotics. You can define what happens to it when illuminated, which is done by convention but you can stick any bonus in there.

You could implement a weather effect through a [weather] tag, but with the limitation that the bonus is always symmetric, you may just as well define a new TOD type. I personally dislike changing the bonuses based on weather... but since the graphical/performance hurdles would need to be met regardless, maybe you should do things one step at a time.

khamul · Post by **khamul** » October 11th, 2005, 2:51 pm

The obvious use for weather effects would be - for me - in campaigns. I think in the short term this could simply be done by extending Time Of Day effects - so instead of 'Noon' or 'First Watch', you might have 'Noon-Thunderstorm' or 'First Watch - Full Moon', with an appropriate graphic replacing the default.

At the moment, effects of this would presumably be limited to Time Of Day effects - i.e. whether Lawfuls, Chaotics or neither get the bonus. An application of this might be a Lich covering the sun with clouds to prevent Lawfuls getting a bonus during the day, or a White Mage revealing the moon at night so Lawful troops can see.

It might be possible to do more. Scott? How flexible is Time Of Day?

Tux2B · Post by **Tux2B** » October 11th, 2005, 5:34 pm

There could be "rain" tiles, that could be used the same way as swnow in Northern Winter (Httt)

scott · Post by **scott** » October 12th, 2005, 3:28 am

Worldforge CVS has some nice bird sounds.
http://purple.worldforge.org/wf/cvs/med ... res/birds/

And some weather, but not much
http://purple.worldforge.org/wf/cvs/med ... vironment/

MadMax · Post by **MadMax** » October 13th, 2005, 5:20 pm

scott, what do you mean by a [weather] tag?

What would almost be needed is for WML to be able to work continuously, not in response to events. The WML would have to be ran every few seconds, no matter what is going on in the game (the time interval can be fixed, random factors can be added through the existing random number system).

scott · Post by **scott** » October 13th, 2005, 5:44 pm

MadMax wrote:scott, what do you mean by a [weather] tag?

What would almost be needed is for WML to be able to work continuously, not in response to events. The WML would have to be ran every few seconds, no matter what is going on in the game (the time interval can be fixed, random factors can be added through the existing random number system).

You're right, but that's a horrible misuse of WML. Weather should work just like flag waving and evening smoke (do we even have that anymore?). The code knows when to wave the flags or light the fires. The actual animation of it should take place in the executable code rather than in the scripting language, where it is bound to be much slower. The engine should be set to handle several continuous effects such as rain and wind, and use the scripting language to tell the game when to activate them. You could customize the animation and sounds with WML and make use of a general 'continuous animation' code. As an aside, I wonder how horrible it would be trying to put an animated overlay on every hex (of a specified terrain) on the map. My computer sometimes has trouble keeping the flags going during combat.

gryphonlord · Post by **gryphonlord** » October 13th, 2005, 9:59 pm

I think rain or other bad weather could count as either dusk/dawn (no penalty or bonus for anyone) or a new 'time of day' with a -25% penalty for all (neutral, lawful, or chaotic). This would add interest to the game because an attack during a strong time of day (eg. daytime for lawful) could be interrupted by a sudden penalty.

Huche_wawa · Post by **Huche_wawa** » October 13th, 2005, 10:04 pm

or you can add seasons so that every 10 days the weather changes, so certain units would have a hard time in winter giving drakes and other flying pretty birdys an advantage

Post by **turin** » October 13th, 2005, 10:09 pm

I didn't know years were only 40 days long.

And even so... how many single scenarios get to be 60 turns long? Usually they're about 25... unless you're playing on a huge map, it would never get long enough to actually reach a change of season. The best way to simulate that is with in-campaign events, and with, for example, maps later in the campaign having more/less snowy terrains on them...

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » October 13th, 2005, 10:31 pm

Yeah, it should be every 23 turns the season changes.

Assasin · Post by **Assasin** » October 13th, 2005, 10:50 pm

Weather would be cool, but there should be warnings like, "Verily it will rain before sundown" or "My lord, grey clouds from the east are approaching fast".

Post by **turin** » October 13th, 2005, 11:24 pm

Elvish Pillager wrote:Yeah, it should be every 23 turns the season changes.

Huh?

It should actually be 270 turns per season change... that's if you're working with the theoretical 4-season, 3-months-each schedule, which actually doesn't work in most places. For example, in Texas, summer seems to last 5 months, autumn 1, winter 2, and spring 4.