Age of Dinosaurs (It's finally here!)

[Mountain_King]

Age of Dinosaurs!

Only two planned factions at present: Carnivores and Herbivores. If there are any starving/bored artists out there that want to contribute, the link to the art thread can be found in my signature.


Original First Post in Ideas Forum
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I see that this has never directly come up before, so I'll start with the sales pitch.
[sales pitch]
Have you ever wanted to put dinosaurs in Wesnoth? Not just the little saurians or the drakes, real dinosaurs! They could be really useful for monster units in your UMC. Tyrannosaurus, Pterodactyls, Triceratops, or Diplodocus! Being that dinosaurs have achieved semi-legendary status even in our world, couldn't they reach the same level in Irdya? I already have the stats figured out in my head, I just want to see if anybody else has been hit with the urge to bring these legendary beasts to Wesnoth. [/sales pitch]

EDIT: Now being developed as something akin to a "prehistoric era". We're including trilobites, diatryma, dinosaurs, and possibly ice age animals.

[hhyloc]

Not sure if this gonna be accepted
But Hulavuta will definitely like it

Edit: Typo

[HomerJ]

I already have the stats figured out in my head, I just want to see if anybody else has been hit with the urge to bring these legendary beasts to Wesnoth. [/sales pitch]

Hm, I can't help but wonder if there will be a time when somebody proposes a unit that would be awesome to have with the sentence: "I have the sprite, animations, portrait ready for use, can someone help me with the stats perhaps?"

This is not meant to be rude however, I try to point out that just ideas for units (including the stats) require almost no work, whereas the artwork is the bottleneck for any kind of unit, UMC or mainline.
And since most people that come here to propose ideas for units most of the time include "I'm not an artist, so I can't do the sprites" and most artists have more than enough work on their agenda, an idea alone, even if beautiful, has only minor chances of becoming a reality.


Greetz
HomerJ

[thespaceinvader]

Woo. Go make them, if you're 'no artist' (and probably 90% of our current artists weren't when they came to the forums) then either try, or work with placeholders until you've got a playable concept together, which will tend to attract artists.

Everyone has their ideas. Until you act on them, they're worthless. Noone else is going to, you have to do it yourself.

[Hulavuta]

hhyloc is right, I DO like this idea. I know a little bit more about dinosaurs than the average forumer, so I could help out with descriptions and stats and stuff.

[Drakefriend]

LET ME HELP!

[Mountain_King]

hhyloc is right, I DO like this idea. I know a little bit more about dinosaurs than the average forumer, so I could help out with descriptions and stats and stuff.

I figured you would. How about pachycephalosaurus?

LET ME HELP!

I am creating an art thread if you want to contribute, and I'll post what I've got there.

@thesapceinvader: Thank you for the advice. I totally understand how busy most of the artists are on here, but I wanted to make sure there was a big enough interest before I went ahead.

Now I have one more question...there seems to be no option for "unit pack" in the choices for add-ons. Would I just pack it into an era and people can take it from there??

[thespaceinvader]

Media would be the thing to use for a unit pack. But you'd be better off posting it as a faction, or probably as a default + dinosaurs era.

[Hulavuta]

Mountain_King: What about it? I know of it. It's not really that obscure, it's been in most dinosaur movies and has already had two pokemon based off of it.

BTW, are you planning to make an actual development topic, or should TSI move this into Era development or something?

EDIT: Another quick idea I just recalled. Maybe a good idea would be to make it a full-fledged era and have each faction as a different period. The Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous factions. The Dinosaurs that existed during each time period would go into the respective era. Although this would force balancing, which I'd also be happy to help with.

[Mountain_King]

Mountain_King: What about it? I know of it. It's not really that obscure, it's been in most dinosaur movies and has already had two pokemon based off of it.

I haven't watched many of the dinosaur movies, or pokemon, so I wouldn't know about that. But I read a lot of dinosaur books when I was younger (a lot). How about baryonyx? (These are all on the list in case you're wondering)

BTW, are you planning to make an actual development topic, or should TSI move this into Era development or something?

That's a good question. Don't know the answer for certain.

EDIT: Another quick idea I just recalled. Maybe a good idea would be to make it a full-fledged era and have each faction as a different period. The Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous factions. The Dinosaurs that existed during each time period would go into the respective era. Although this would force balancing, which I'd also be happy to help with.

The only reason I wouldn't like making this into an era is because, as you said, it would require balancing. I rather like having them appear as incredibly overpowered units that are a total pain to kill. At least the theropods anyways. Big, slow, killing machines...with great vulnerability to magic. Come to think of it, the average dinosaur size is only about the size of a sheep technincally, so that might work. I'll have to think about that more. Thank you for the ideas, please keep them coming!

[Dixie]

The only reason I wouldn't like making this into an era is because, as you said, it would require balancing. I rather like having them appear as incredibly overpowered units that are a total pain to kill. At least the theropods anyways. Big, slow, killing machines...with great vulnerability to magic. Come to think of it, the average dinosaur size is only about the size of a sheep technincally, so that might work. I'll have to think about that more. Thank you for the ideas, please keep them coming!

Well, as long as they are balanced amongst themselves, they can be totally overpowered next to mainline, if you wish. And people can still just come along and pick whichever single dinosaur and make it into a single monster if they'd like it for their UMC, nobody's forced to use the whole era/faction.

[Hulavuta]

Okay, I see. Baryonyx, yes, I know that one.

[thespaceinvader]

Moved to Faction and Era Development.

[Hulavuta]

Thanks

[PapaSmurfReloaded]

Dinosaurs Vs Mammals era? lol xD