Are Dunefolk human?

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Imperios
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Are Dunefolk human?

Post by Imperios »

Yeah, this may sound a bit racist, but I am honestly confused. They look exactly like humans, but are considered to be a different race in-game and have non-human vulnerabilities. I am pretty sure that if I smack my Arab groupmate from university, he wouldn't be hurt more than anyone else.

I think that giving them some distinctly non-human attribute could help resolve this confusion.
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James_The_Invisible
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by James_The_Invisible »

Yes, they are humans. They are a different race in game because of names for individual units (I think).
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by Shiki »

The only reason I see for them to be listed as a different race is that they human section would be even more crowded.
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sergey
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by sergey »

I think that is ok for Dunefolk to have their vulnerabilities, as long as they have their own advantages. And I agree that it would be better to change something about the races, e.g.:

- rename "race" to "category"
- place Dunefolk to the same race as the other humans
- rename human race to something more specific, so there will be 2 different races for humans

Term "race" is good for elves, orcs, etc. But it seems odd for mechanical and monster races. On the other hand, we should keep in mind that this is a non-commercial game. Race is a core concept of the game. Changing it will break a lot of things and requires many efforts. Developers didn't intend to harm anyone by adding new Dunefolk units. I think we should be thankful anyway, even if we don't like something about the game.
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by Tad_Carlucci »

The problem is 'race' and 'species' are used as if they are the same thing. I would suggest that the term 'race' is species-specific. Orcs, for instance, are generally all of the same 'race' but self-identify as different 'tribes'.

The problem is that many of these groups can, and do, inter-breed, yet we consider them different species. Take dogs and wolves as an example. We consider then to be quite different animals, yet they inter-breed without difficulty. So, what, really, is the difference between an Elf, Human, Orc, Half-Human Elf, Half-Orcish Elf, Half-Elven Human, Half-Elven Orc, Half-Orcish Human, and Half-Human Orc? Does it really just come down to which parent raised them and within which tribe? To a Human, that is a Half-Orc but to an Orc, it's a Half-Human and, so, it's outcast, but part of both?
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sergey
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by sergey »

This is written in the "/data/core/units.cfg" file:

Code: Select all

male_name= _"race^Dunefolk Human"
female_name= _"race+female^Dunefolk Human"
plural_name= _"race+plural^Dunefolk"
description= _"An offshoot of a forgotten nomadic civilization, the Dunefolk humans ... 
However, in the unreleased version there is just "Dunefolk" instead of "Dunefolk humans" in the description. Probably because that sounds better. If plural_name= _"race+plural^Dunefolk" is replaced with plural_name= _"race+plural^Dunefolk Humans", they will be shown as "Dunefolk Humans" in the game help.

Imperios, what do you think about that? What if they are a different race, but with "human" in their name?
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Imperios
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by Imperios »

Their vulnerabilities do not help either. Why are they all vulnerable to crushing damage?
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by name »

Imperios wrote: December 26th, 2018, 12:28 pm Yeah, this may sound a bit racist, but I am honestly confused. They look exactly like humans, but are considered to be a different race in-game and have non-human vulnerabilities.
They also have inexplicably high mobility and defense on sand, which is why they should really have been saurians, not humans.

Being saurians explains the impact vulnerability, sand adaptation and general mobility whilst not clogging up the units list with yet more unimaginatively human units. It also eliminates the issue of how did they ever get to the great continent (since humans are not native to there, whilst saurians very likely are).

Making them a race of jinn would accomplish the same things.
Imperios wrote: December 26th, 2018, 12:28 pm I think that giving them some distinctly non-human attribute could help resolve this confusion.
Well, the elves have a connection to the "faerie" realm and it is even a part of their being. Which explains a lot of their abilities and weaknesses with lore. The dunefolk could similarly be a race with a "jinn" element to them.
Tad_Carlucci wrote: December 27th, 2018, 3:23 pm The problem is 'race' and 'species' are used as if they are the same thing.
In the game's world, it has always meant "species". The game's setting was never too focused on various different human cultures fighting, as per real life history, rather the fantasy "what if" of different sentient species sharing the same world. That is, what if humans were not the dominant creatures of the world, but one of several that convergently evolved similar communication and tool making abilities, while otherwise having tremendous differences such as specialization for different environments.
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sergey
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by sergey »

Imperios wrote: December 27th, 2018, 7:55 pm Their vulnerabilities do not help either. Why are they all vulnerable to crushing damage?
First of all, this is a strategy game. The main goals of having different factions are diversity and balance. No one is interested in too weak or too strong faction.

There are many strange things in the Wesnoth, e.g. castles without walls, units are displayed above the trees, etc. -10% impact Dunefolk resistance doesn't look confusing comparing to those things. And, what is wrong if their body is more vulnerable to impact damage? In your first message you said that in the real world human races have the same vulnerabilities. But this is a game. Having different units is far more interesting than a lot of similar units.

Why didn't you mention that Dunefolk have the only level 1 unit in the game which can heal +8, at level 2 he even regenerates. Many of them can use both melee and ranged weapons. They have a unit that deals melee and ranged fire damage, which is very dangerous against undead. They have melee marksman. Mounted unit skilled in ranged attacks. Another mounted unit that can switch between impact and pierce melee damage, depending on vulnerabilities of his enemy. And they gain a lot if their units are advanced, i.e. their characteristics are significantly improved.

if you just started to play the game and it is hard to play Dunefolk, that's because they require more skills comparing to other factions. 

Here are some helpful links https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=34310, https://wiki.wesnoth.org/How_to_play... There is no Dunefolk, since they are a new faction. And here is "How to play" topic for them https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?t=43612, though there were named Khalifate in 1.12 version. There were a lot of debates, since the old name is too similar with a real world history. Check the units database to understand their unit names in the previous version https://units.wesnoth.org/1.12/mainline ... #Khalifate and https://units.wesnoth.org/1.14/mainline ... l#Dunefolk.



I am pretty sure their -10% impact resistance will not be changed, there are balancing considerations behind that. You may ask to replace "Dunefolk" with "Dunefolk Human", that seems reasonable.
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sergey
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by sergey »

Imperios, as I see you have raised similar question 4 years ago https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=41417. Why are you so confident that Dunefolk must have 0% instead of -10% impact resistance? Some loyalists units have different resistances. Some elves have better forest defense than others.

And here is a thread for Dunefolk balancing https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=49057
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Shiki
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by Shiki »

Technically, one can have them both be called "Humans" ingame (the name displayed in the sidebar), but still have them grouped under a different name in the help. E.g.:

Code: Select all

[race]
        id=human
        male_name= _ "race^Human"
        female_name= _ "race+female^Human"
        plural_name= _ "race^Humans"
        {HUMAN_NAMES}
[/race]
[race]
        id=dunefolk
        male_name= _"race^Human"
        female_name= _"race+female^Human"
        plural_name= _"race+plural^Humans – Dunefolk"
        {DUNEFOLK_NAMES}
[/race]
The question which names to use for them in the help is the nasty part.
One also could make a third group for the outlaws.
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enclave
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by enclave »

as for me i think the dunefolk faction doesnt exist, they dont have animations.
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Iris
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by Iris »

I swear we talked about this before. It may have been on IRC, though.
James_The_Invisible wrote: December 26th, 2018, 12:48 pm Yes, they are humans. They are a different race in game because of names for individual units (I think).
This is really the only reason they still are a separate race even though the subject was brought up during 1.11.x already and we decided that it wasn’t a good idea to make that distinction. But as it is, in order to give them their unique names while making them part of the same race as other humans (which all use the Wesnothian pseudo-Welsh-inspired name source), we would need to include the list of names for them in every individual unit type definition, which would increase their individual memory footprint quite a bit. Some ideas for an alternate mechanism to assign name sources to unit types were brought up but never materialized in time.
enclave wrote: December 29th, 2018, 3:31 pm as for me i think the dunefolk faction doesnt exist, they dont have animations.
Don’t derail the thread. No-one’s talking about art here and this is the Writers’ Forum.
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TeaIntoxicated
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by TeaIntoxicated »

I think Dunefolk are human.
Separate race is for:
1. Decreasing "human race" clutter, both when it comes to description and units list;
2. Different names of individual soldiers.
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Re: Are Dunefolk human?

Post by TeaIntoxicated »

Shiki wrote: December 28th, 2018, 12:10 pm Technically, one can have them both be called "Humans" ingame (the name displayed in the sidebar), but still have them grouped under a different name in the help. E.g.:

Code: Select all

[race]
        id=human
        male_name= _ "race^Human"
        female_name= _ "race+female^Human"
        plural_name= _ "race^Humans"
        {HUMAN_NAMES}
[/race]
[race]
        id=dunefolk
        male_name= _"race^Human"
        female_name= _"race+female^Human"
        plural_name= _"race+plural^Humans – Dunefolk"
        {DUNEFOLK_NAMES}
[/race]
The question which names to use for them in the help is the nasty part.
One also could make a third group for the outlaws.
Outlaws are of the same culture as Loyalists (and magic-wielding outcasts), thus they can have the same names. Dunefolk are culturally far from all of them.
Setting Dunefolk as separate "race" improves clearance when it comes to which human is from which culture.
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