[Historical] Legend of Wesmere (add-on version)

[fabi]

Santi, for what is scenario 13 "News from the front" 2 turns long?

Did you intend the player to do something?

There is nothing to do here, just dialogue.
The disallow recruit/recall thing could be avoided by making this scenario
only one or zero turns long.

[Iris]

You may prefer 1 turn or -1 turns (unlimited) length. 0 turns may make Wesnoth go mad.

[AI]

DDR recently found that an unset turns key has the same effect as setting it to 1. (time over in second turn)

I've tried to find the right place to change this to something more sensible (-1), but haven't found it so far.

[fabi]

Currently, these songs are used:

• 01_The_Uprooting.cfg: {SCENARIO_MUSIC "frantic.ogg"}

• 01_The_Uprooting.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 02_Hostile_mountains.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 03_Kalian.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 04_Elvish_Treasury.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 05_Saurian_Treasury.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 06_Aquaintance_in_Need.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 07_Elves_last_stand.cfg: {SCENARIO_MUSIC "battle.ogg"}

• 08_Council_of_hard_choices.cfg: music=elf-land.ogg

• 09_Bounty_hunters.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 10_Cliffs_of_Thoria.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 11_Battle_of_the_book.cfg: {SCENARIO_MUSIC "battle.ogg"}

• 12_Revelations.cfg: music=elf-land.ogg

• 13_News_from_the_front.cfg: music=elf-land.ogg

• 13_News_from_the_front.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 14_Ancient_Alliance.cfg: {SCENARIO_MUSIC "battle.ogg"}

• 15_The_Treaty.cfg: music=elf-land.ogg

• 16_The_King_must_die.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 17_Breaking_the_siege.cfg: music=elf-land.ogg

• 18_A_Warning.cfg: music=elf-land.ogg

• 19_Costly_Revenge.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 20_Council_ruling.cfg: music=elf-land.ogg

• 21_Elvish_Assasins.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 22_Northern_Battle.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 23_End_of_War.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 24_Epilogue1.cfg: music=elf-land.ogg

• 25_The_Return_of_Trouble.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 26_Mountain_Lake.cfg: music=elf-land.ogg

• 27_River_crossing.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 28_Shadows.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 29_Save_the_King.cfg: music=frantic.ogg

• 30_Prince_of_Wesnoth.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 31_Hero's_Return.cfg: music=underground.ogg

• 32_Epilogue.cfg: music=elf-land.ogg

That are only 4 different songs.
In mainline dev currently are nearly 30 songs present.
Any suggestions for song changes?
Keep in mind that music can be changed during a scenario in a event since wesnoth 1.4.

Can we get rid of the elvish elder?
The unit graphics are different from current mainline elves.
I would like to delete both graphics and unit description.
Then replace him with an modified elvish hero or captain.

What about a special ability for one of the main characters? Something like Cleodil is able to bring back one
unit per scenario to life if the kill is in her near.

[Zachron]

I've found that the music being used doesn't work in the scnearios without the {Scenario Music} macro in place.

I also think the scenarios could use a more dynamic playlist. Perhaps having the first scenario go back and forth between a few tracks.

Also, it's not Wesnoth, without at least one instance of "knolls.ogg."

[fabi]

I've found that the music being used doesn't work in the scnearios without the {Scenario Music} macro in place.

Sorry, i didn't get that. What do you mean?
The attribute music="filename" doesn't work?
This is new to me. I will check.

I also think the scenarios could use a more dynamic playlist. Perhaps having the first scenario go back and forth between a few tracks.

I agree.

Also, it's not Wesnoth, without at least one instance of "knolls.ogg."

You will have it in scenario 2.

[zookeeper]

I also think the scenarios could use a more dynamic playlist. Perhaps having the first scenario go back and forth between a few tracks.

For what it's worth, in several mainline campaigns (DiD, Liberty, TSG, TRoW) I've tried to aim for having 2-3 tracks as a playlist for most scenarios, selecting the tracks which in my opinion best reflect the "mood" of the scenario. I think it works kinda well: if you'd just have one track per scenario you'd end up repeating the same track in many scenarios (because some tracks just fit more scenarios better than some others), and it might get a bit repetitive during one scenario too. And it's nice if the music thematically fits the scenario, too (as opposed to just using the default playlist, for instance).

Of course, it's not any kind of a standard or anything, I'm just saying that's how I'm doing things currently.

[fabi]

@zookeeper, Shadow Master and Zachron:
Thank you for your advises and remarks.

Another issue I discovered:
Only the following scenarios do have a story part that displays the scenarios names:

• 01_The_Uprooting.cfg: show_title=yes

• 02_Hostile_mountains.cfg: show_title=yes

• 16_The_King_must_die.cfg: show_title=yes

• 21_Elvish_Assasins.cfg: show_title=yes

• 22_Northern_Battle.cfg: show_title=yes

• 23_End_of_War.cfg: show_title=yes

• 27_River_crossing.cfg: show_title=yes

What is the policy of mainline campaigns?
Is every scenarios name displayed a must have or it is just a design decision?

Code: Select all

        {MOVE_UNIT id=Iradia 9 16 }
        {MOVE_UNIT id=Iradia 10 16 }
        {MOVE_UNIT id=Iradia 11 16 }
        {MOVE_UNIT id=Iradia 12 17 }
        {MOVE_UNIT id=Iradia 13 18 }
        {MOVE_UNIT id=Iradia 14 18 }

...
You are doing a [kill] after the MOVE_UNITs. This code could be optimized.

While we are at it, I admit I have done such bad WML designs in the past, in my campaign. I am currently rewriting WML to make it sleeker, cleaner and more optimum performance and memory-wise.

This one I can't correct.
I have no idea how to do this in a better way.
Could you give me a hint, please?

Code: Select all

[move_unit_fake]
    type=Sea Serpent
    side=4
    x=$xx1,$xx1
    y=$yy1-1,$yy1
[/move_unit_fake]

Sorry, no idea what was even attempted here.
Should the sea creatures spawn at random locations and fake move their way
to this random location?

Nearly every other issue of your post has been corrected, thank you.

[AI]

I'll explain it.

What MOVE_UNIT does is:
-store the unit (killing it)
-move_unit_fake
-replace coordinates with new ones
-unstore it

If you move it and then kill it, you might as well kill it and then move_unit_fake.

[fabi]

Since on this Sunday is the 4th anniversary of Legend of Wesmere, I release a snapshot from the development version.

It is heavily untested, so don't blame me if it is going to eat your cat.

It can be downloaded from this low bandwidth resource:

edit: url removed, this version is outdated. A newer one can be downloaded from the campaign server.

It's targeted against wesnoth 1.5.3 but could work with any 1.5.x version.

Greetings, Fabi

[santi]

Looks like Low's picking up steam.
Some answers:
fabi wrote:

"News from the front" 2 turns long?

Did you intend the player to do something?

There is nothing to do here, just dialogue.

Right, except for Landar's brief disappearance( may be that he goes back to kill Crelanu and steal a few more portions). I found this way to get this to work; if there'w a better way, by all means let's recode it.

Next songs:
As you noticed, LoW is pretty old for a 4 year old. At the time there were not that many music themes. I generally wanted frantic for battles or climaxes, elf-land for the more peaceful scenaria and the others for variery. But sure, let's change them.

Elvish Elder:
Personally I like variery with units. Plus I'd hate to have Kitty do a portait that will not be used
I do not see any problem with the unit except maybe some missing frames. Storywise Kalenz's community is pretty isolated and it's unlikely to have a local lord, so an elder may be effectively the leader, which turns out to be a bad choice. Plus, since things are peaceful at the time, it is conceivable that there is no serious military structure.

Special abilities for Cleodil: You are talking I guess after she gets Crelanu's book.
It might be interesting, but probably will make the campaign too easy. Plus, if that kind
of magic is available to elves, shouldn't this also be available to the HttT rebels(among other reasons since Delf has gotten the book by then)?

Finally Iradia's move shoudl just show him to move and eventually disappear in the woods, while the sear creatures are just spawned in random locations in certain regions
-the idea was not really to show their movement. So, any optimization could be welcome there

[fabi]

Right, except for Landar's brief disappearance( may be that he goes back to kill Crelanu and steal a few more portions). I found this way to get this to work; if there's a better way, by all means let's recode it.

Okay, I will recode it.

Next songs:
As you noticed, LoW is pretty old for a 4 year old. At the time there were not that many music themes. I generally wanted frantic for battles or climaxes, elf-land for the more peaceful scenaria and the others for variery. But sure, let's change them.

I will add songs to every scenario during the next few days.
Please feel free to change them again if you or your sons are not satisfied with my choice.
The first few scenarios do already have some dynamic song changes, when important events are triggered.
For example, is the elvish theme song played when the player frees Cleodil.

Elvish Elder:
Personally I like variery with units. Plus I'd hate to have Kitty do a portait that will not be used
I do not see any problem with the unit except maybe some missing frames. Storywise Kalenz's community is pretty isolated and it's unlikely to have a local lord, so an elder may be effectively the leader, which turns out to be a bad choice. Plus, since things are peaceful at the time, it is conceivable that there is no serious military structure.

Sorry, I provoked a misunderstanding.
I never intended to remove "Velon" from the campaign and I definitely want to use Kitty's portrait for him.
But the unit images for the "elvish elder" on which Velon is based
are nearly as old as Legend of Wesmere itself.
These images won't make it to mainline so they are a showstopper for bringing LOW there.
I already changed his unit type to "Elvish Captain" and gave him an "aged" trait which reduces his speed and hitpoints in SVN head.
If you want him to stay a unit for his own, we would need to find an artist who volunteers to make new images for it.
In my opinion this would be a waste of resources because the appearance of Velon is very short.
If an artists wants to make unit images, I would suggest making them for one of the main characters who stays in the campaign for a long time (young Kalenz, Landar, Cleodil) or to redo the "Elvish Horsearcher".
Another idea would be to let Kalenz take Velon with him and give him some words to say during the campaign especially because he has this nice character portrait from Kitty.

Special abilities for Cleodil: You are talking I guess after she gets Crelanu's book.
It might be interesting, but probably will make the campaign too easy. Plus, if that kind of magic is available to elves, shouldn't this also be available to the HttT rebels(among other reasons since Delf has gotten the book by then)?

I do admit that the idea is quite powerful, perhaps über powerful.
Designing such special features is maybe best to postpone till after the inclusion in mainline. It was just a thought I had to early

Finally Iradia's move shoudl just show him to move and eventually disappear in the woods, while the sear creatures are just spawned in random locations in certain regions
-the idea was not really to show their movement. So, any optimization could be welcome there

Thanks for explaining, I will optimize the code.

Greetings, Fabi

[santi]

ok, great work Fabi.
I'm ok with the Velon change and I agree. I'm not sure whether saving Velon is worthwhile storywise-in fact Kalenz's rise to power is based pretty much on everybody else being eliminated-not by his doing though. Having an alternate potential command would only bring new issues.

I'm not nixing Cleodil's superpowers. It's just that a lot of effort went into LoW trying to make it consistent -even explain some grey points- every other story that existed at the time, like HttT and LoW. My main worry apart from gameplay is that we may be creating an incompatibility with other stories from that era. Of course maybe Shadow would love it(the more dark secrets the elves posess, the more possibilities for IftU and affiliated campaigns). Come to think of it maybe it's the residual knowledge of Crelanu's book that corrupts the universe. But I prefer to leaveat least as much freedom to other campaigns to create a new story as TROW and HttT left LoW and others.

One final request:
Tonight I will try and add my changes(scenarios 20-end) to yours in SVN on the 1.5 branch. I've implemented(I hope correctly) all of Shadow's changes
except for the music.
I'll pm or post here when done. So do not post tonight; instead get the
new version and work from there

Note: Since I changed Assasins to Assassins, also the map name will be affected.

[santi]

Fabi, one more thing: Should I grab svn or the tarball you posted?

[fabi]

Fabi, one more thing: Should I grab svn or the tarball you posted?

Ah, now I do understand your pm.
There have been heavy changes in the svn repository during the last 2 days.
Some from me, some from the wmllint tool, some from AI.
The tarball is already outdated.
If you haven't done a "svn update" and worked from this base on you will have many svn conflicts that are to resolve because the files you changed weren't up to date.
If you do cooperate work with svn it is a good idea to work always with an up to date
checkout of the repository.
If you do have problems merging your changes into the svn, just send me a tarball and I will do it for you.

Greetings, Fabi