Sam_waz_thread

[sam_waz_here]

I would disagree; IMO, fantasy isn't really at all about creating something "new", or original, or unique. I won't go into trying to define fantasy ATM (it would make one EPIC post), but part of it involves about taking what is old and putting an interesting twist on it. And given that, a bunch of random factions of elves is much better than some random faction of Random Giant Ants Because Giant Ants Are Cool And New (or whatever your idiotic faction idea is) that no human could possibly relate to, IMO.

That said, I also don't think you can consider a single element of a fantasy world alone; you have to consider the entire world as a whole. I think there's a good argument to be made that all the elf factions in Wesnoth aren't good. The Desert Elves are interesting in the setting of UTBS, though IMO UTBS shouldn't be part of the Wesnoth universe. The Dark Elves don't even have a setting, AFAIK; they are just a random elf faction. The Sidhe, well, the Sidhe work (fairly well, IMO) in the Orbivm universe, but I have no idea how they're supposed to fit into the Wesnoth world. And the wood elves, well, they're just generic elves, yeah, but whether that's OK or not depends on whether they work well with the rest of the fantasy world, which I think they do.

Before I debate with you the subject I must first show you how you have insulted me and how you will hopefully feel bad for it and become a better person in future.

I never mentioned anything about any ideas for factions, if I ever come up with faction ideas they will be balanced, interesting, have alot of thought put into them and of course imaginative. So in saying (or whatever your idiotic faction idea is) you are insulting my integrity and imagination which I value very highly; in future keep your nasty little in bracket comments to yourself.

I do consider the entire world of wesnoth which you again assumed that I have not and yes the game could have survived if every elf faction were some other custom race. To put my opinion into simpler terms I will weigh up the pros and cons of elves. Pros: established race characteristics, established design, established skills and advantages. Cons: not unique, little imagination required, restricts storyline flows.
So although you essentially have a faction in a can with the elves you lose all the creative control of creating a race that will be remembered as part of wesnoth. Instead of making a detailed race that will interest players into desiring to know more about them and click on unit descriptions every chance; you get elf archer becomes elf marksman, I wonder what their ideals and values are? Oh that's right it is a unit that likes peace but when in a fight will shoot better then a human, just like in every other game ever invented.

Call me a nerd going over the pointless but I always read the unit descriptions; I like to know why these orcs want to attack me or why these elves are helping me but all too often I know the answer. It's because orcs are the enemies of humans and elves are trying to maintain the balance, how monotonous.

I believe that fantasy is about creating something special that will be remembered but if your EPIC post can convince me otherwise I would like to read it. For the other posts about EE and EOM yes I do play those and I like those: the kalifa, devlings, aragwaith, celestials, therians, Windsong, drakes and even warg all have their own feel to them and could have an interesting novel written about them, because they are all pretty much blank canvases. The elementals are pretty standard and the dwarves, orcs, vampires, undead and elves all have the its been done label.

[zookeeper]

I would disagree; IMO, fantasy isn't really at all about creating something "new", or original, or unique. I won't go into trying to define fantasy ATM (it would make one EPIC post), but part of it involves about taking what is old and putting an interesting twist on it. And given that, a bunch of random factions of elves is much better than some random faction of Random Giant Ants Because Giant Ants Are Cool And New (or whatever your idiotic faction idea is) that no human could possibly relate to, IMO.

Before I debate with you the subject I must first show you how you have insulted me and how you will hopefully feel bad for it and become a better person in future.

I never mentioned anything about any ideas for factions, if I ever come up with faction ideas they will be balanced, interesting, have alot of thought put into them and of course imaginative. So in saying (or whatever your idiotic faction idea is) you are insulting my integrity and imagination which I value very highly; in future keep your nasty little in bracket comments to yourself.

The bolded part wasn't referring to you.

[turin]

Before I debate with you the subject I must first show you how you have insulted me and how you will hopefully feel bad for it and become a better person in future.

I never mentioned anything about any ideas for factions, if I ever come up with faction ideas they will be balanced, interesting, have alot of thought put into them and of course imaginative. So in saying (or whatever your idiotic faction idea is) you are insulting my integrity and imagination which I value very highly; in future keep your nasty little in bracket comments to yourself.

Looks like someone can't tell the difference between the personal and the general "you". Not a native English speaker, perhaps? If not, your mistake is excusable, but if so - you deserve to be insulted, even though I did not insult you.

Anyway, I won't require an apology from you for falsely accusing me, but you might want to be more careful in the future, it can make you look like an idiot...

(If this comes off as slightly condescending, it's meant to be, but in a humorous way - I find your accusation more amusing than anything, so I respond in kind. All in good fun.)

I do consider the entire world of wesnoth which you again assumed that I have not and yes the game could have survived if every elf faction were some other custom race.

Of course the game could have survived - that's not really the point though - or is it? Are we debating the fantasy world or the game itself? Because obviously the game can function with whatever factions you want to throw in...

---

The point is to create a fantasy world that makes sense taken as a whole; this can't be done if you just make a bunch of "interesting factions" that don't fit together well thematically. For example, it would just be stupid to have a faction with medieval tech and a faction of space marines... they don't make any sense together. Any story bringing those two factions together into one world would feel extremely contrived. But take the Desert Elves faction; it makes perfect sense in the Wesnoth history, because after the Cataclysm the elves would have become desert-dwellers...

To put my opinion into simpler terms I will weigh up the pros and cons of elves. Pros: established race characteristics, established design, established skills and advantages. Cons: not unique, little imagination required, restricts storyline flows.
So although you essentially have a faction in a can with the elves you lose all the creative control of creating a race that will be remembered as part of wesnoth. Instead of making a detailed race that will interest players into desiring to know more about them and click on unit descriptions every chance; you get elf archer becomes elf marksman, I wonder what their ideals and values are? Oh that's right it is a unit that likes peace but when in a fight will shoot better then a human, just like in every other game ever invented.

Sounds like a great description of the Wood Elves, but your description doesn't begin to cover the Sidhe (you'll note none of their units even use bows, and they certainly don't give a damn about "peace"), the Issaelfr (could say the same for them - though admittedly they do have an archer unit), the Dark Elves, or even really the Desert Elves (though they are more so because they're the descendants of the Wood Elves).

Even if I were brought to agree that it's not particularly a great idea to have a generic elven faction where "elf archer becomes elf marksman ... a unit that likes peace but when in a fight will shoot better than a human", that is not what most of the elven factions are. The only one that fits that description is the Rebels.

Also, I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with doing a generic elven faction, if it's done well and the implementation in the fantasy world actually establishes a situation where they would be plausible, rather than just assuming that because they're elves (which only requires they be immortal and probably be more skilled at most things than humans) they would be those things (i.e. peaceful, good at archery, etc). Tolkien did a great job of this (incidentally - Tolkien's elves weren't any better at archery than at any other art, and they were better than humans at pretty much everything; people just focus on the archery because of the character Legolas from LotR. Same reason most people think elves have blond hair), but Wesnoth, admittedly, does not.

Call me a nerd going over the pointless but I always read the unit descriptions; I like to know why these orcs want to attack me or why these elves are helping me but all too often I know the answer. It's because orcs are the enemies of humans and elves are trying to maintain the balance, how monotonous.

Agreed that the fantasy world needs to be interesting, not monotonous. But "orcs are the enemies of humans and elves are trying to maintain the balance" isn't even what's happening in Wesnoth. In fact, it sounds almost like you just saw that Wesnoth had elves, orcs and men and assumed that what you describe as the typical setup is what we would have.

I believe that fantasy is about creating something special that will be remembered but if your EPIC post can convince me otherwise I would like to read it. For the other posts about EE and EOM yes I do play those and I like those: the kalifa, devlings, aragwaith, celestials, therians, Windsong, drakes and even warg all have their own feel to them and could have an interesting novel written about them, because they are all pretty much blank canvases. The elementals are pretty standard and the dwarves, orcs, vampires, undead and elves all have the its been done label.

So now something being a blank canvas means it's good fantasy? Odd - I would have thought you would want something actually painted on the canvas. If I wanted a blank canvas I would stick to just the fantasy I write.

---

On the subject of making interesting factions, here's something I wrote a long time ago that I still mostly agree with on the subject of drakes, outlining why, though they seem like an interesting and unique addition to Wesnoth, I feel strongly they are a very bad idea thematically:

I have three main problems with drakes:

One is, they were added for multiplayer, and it shows. They were added to Wesnoth's history only because it was felt they needed a home to justify their existence in multiplayer. And as it currently stands, they are on a secluded island in the middle of nowhere. They don't have an actual place in the WoW - they have somewhere we can hide them away, say 'look, they're not only in multiplayer, they have a place in the WoW too', and forget about them. They seem fake.

The second is, I believe that all good fantasy deals with human nature. And different races in fantasy are all embellishments of different facets of human nature, or what-ifs. Elves are, what would people be like if they lived forever and were more intelligent than the average man? Dwarves are an embellishment of the courageous, but also the greedy and selfish, parts of human nature. Orcs emphasize the non-rational in men. But what are drakes? They're just random dragons.

Finally, I dislike the origins of drakes. They are supposedly the sons of dragons, but we know that dragons still exist in Wesnoth when drakes do, dragons are rare and powerful, and there are only a few hundred of them in the WoW. I find it hard to believe that they would have descendants who greatly outnumbered them but are inferior to them in every way. Actually, I find it hard to believe that they would even have descendants.

[Alpha]

Call me a nerd going over the pointless but I always read the unit descriptions; I like to know why these orcs want to attack me or why these elves are helping me but all too often I know the answer. It's because orcs are the enemies of humans and elves are trying to maintain the balance, how monotonous.

I understand what you're getting at here, but the fact of the matter is story-line varies vastly depending on whatever scenario or even campaign you are playing. The orcs in one campaign (or even in a specific scenario) may be completely different to the orcs of another, and therefore have a totally different motivation that defines them as the antagonists of that particular instance. So when it comes down to it, it's really up to the storyteller why the orcs are attacking you, and if you feel that a particular campaign or scenario isn't providing you with enough back-story and reason for your enemy, then it's really not Wesnoth's fault simply because it is the facilitator for the story.

I believe that fantasy is about creating something special that will be remembered but if your EPIC post can convince me otherwise I would like to read it. For the other posts about EE and EOM yes I do play those and I like those: the kalifa, devlings, aragwaith, celestials, therians, Windsong, drakes and even warg all have their own feel to them and could have an interesting novel written about them, because they are all pretty much blank canvases. The elementals are pretty standard and the dwarves, orcs, vampires, undead and elves all have the its been done label.

In my opinion, fantasy is whatever you want it to be. That's what makes it FANTASY. And sure, I often yearn for a fantasy world that challenges my mind and provides stimulation, but once again, it's not Wesnoth that created the specific campaign you may be playing, it's the campaign author. Obviously there are the standard races that Wesnoth has evolved around, but these races are standard for a reason. They are the most well-known and workable races known in fantasy and they are certainly some of the most prevalent in the genre. So while the elves and dwarves and orcs may seem boring, they are one of the most integral parts of fantasy, and if you've tired of them, then you can't blame the facilitator of them.

Alpha

[sam_waz_here]

The basis has been set up, now it is time for the clarification.

I will try to move quickly past the formalities or in this case derogatories.
Yes english is my native tongue, no I am not an idiot or our conversation wouldn't have developed past one post, no one deserves to be insulted it achieves nothing instead everyone deserves to be educated so they will not make the same mistake twice; which I am attempting here by not insulting you in kind because I assume we are both older then thirteen. The only apology that will be made is that I can not judge facial/body expression or vocal tones from text, this ability is beyond us so we must therefore imagine what the other person is typing; for all I know you could say that you are posting humourously but are in fact punching the wall with rage that I offended you, but as I was taught from a young age, never assume. (hmm long sentence I will have to work on that)

But on to the topic:

The game could have survived without the elves, my point is that whether they were a race of druids, gnomes or hyper intelligent apes they would fill the same role as the elves but would all be more interesting. I say this because the elves already have their traits set in stone after so many appearances in all forms of media so any major departures would result in players come on line yelling: waz uup wit teh elvis?
This could be easily circumvented with a race that fills the same role but allows much more creative control, which I hear is what developers like. (In case you were wondernig yes, if any other race was chosen adding Desert to the front of its name would let it fill the same role as the desert elves.)

I said the wood elves liked peace because except in rare cases such as the SOF campaign they are protagonists trying to keep themselves safe and certainly don't antagonise the player as much as orcs, drakes or undead. I haven't played it in a while but if I remember in ROW the elves betrayed the loyalists to keep wesnoth safe from the coming orc hordes when a war mongering race would have rather prepare for the attack so they could fight and die in glory.

The sidhe elves certainly didn't need to be elves as wikipedia puts it they were a supernatural race comparable to elves or faeries. Comparable meaning similar but not the same; so I have no idea why they had to be lumped into the elf breed when they could have just been a people defending the weakest links between wesnoth and the world they inhabit, which linked through faerie mounds. This would have given them some purpose while the sidhe elves have no story or reason for existing at all.
(If you would like to debate the validity of the wikipedia page then I will need to see a reputable page from the internet say that they specifically are elves.)

I agree that giving a race a reason for existing in wesnoth is important but in a game world created from scratch any race could have been given any reason for existing as long as it could be explainable to the logic of wesnoth. This is why no other race has any more reason to exist over the wood elves and they don't have a reason to be in the game over any other wilderness dwelling people of myth. However that is why I believe imagination is the tipping point, the elves have had their time in the limelight and congratulations on them for that but wouldn't it feel so much more satisfying to create a new Wesnoth specific race in their place of the same quality? All mythical creatures had to be dreamed up so wouldn't you agree that with so much knowledge of them all and the tools at our disposal people in the 21st century could create beasts and humanoids to put those to shame? Personally I doubt that elves are the best fairy tale creature ever imagined that could fill the role but with the publicity they could it is assumed they are.
Oh and about that comment on the elves hair colour, perhaps you should take another look at the wood elf pictures to see that there isn't a brunette in the bunch; and Wesnoth does have all the elements of Tolkein's books which is why it is posted here so many times. So at least by coming up with something unique in the wood elves place you would eliminate all the LOTR's threads.

I consider the elves balance and the orcs the generic baddies because we are never given a reason why orcs are attacking except that they have been paid to do so. There are no ceremonial orc pilgramages you interrupt, sacrificial rituals you prevent by scaring off the wildlife with your army or orcish training camp you discover. Just the same old, orcs will be rewarded for attacking you so they do. I called the elves the balance faction because they defend their territory and are always the ones to take down evil empires but refuse to help one side out during minor skirmishes. To me that is balance, it could be changed by making a seed foreign to wesnoth germinate and spread out of control forcing the loyalists to raze forests; or a wildfire is spreading through the country side and to stop it the loyalists hack away at sections of the forest enraging the elves, but no reason for attack as detailed as these has ever come up in the discussions before two sides fight eachother. The elves have a departurre from this role in SOF where they are the antagonists which I like though an elf highwayman causing battles of those magnitudes seemed out of place. However the only time the orcs managed to break out of their box was in son of the black eye; but that conflict started from the loyalists randomly declaring war on the northerners for no reason other then bcause orcs are evil.

I haven't seen the fantasy you write but when I praised those races as blank canvases I meant that because they don't have a set personality like the elves or orcs; they could be moulded any way you choose and could therefore be made for brilliant storylines that would be out of place for the generic races. As blank canvases they all have many possiblities in how they could develop as races to be used in campaigns not just multiplayer factions to be balanced.

The drakes are an interesting race though I agree that slapping them in a random island was a bad idea, I disagree that them being weaker then dragons is a disadvantage because storyline wise perhaps the weakest and most feeble drakes were allowed to flee wesnoth as they weren't a threat and didn't provide the trophies that dragons make, while over time they have been forced to adapt to the challenges of their island home and since they don't have raw power to use they were forced to learn the arts of the weapon smiths and have slowly been regrowing their power. Despite being lodged out in the middle of nowhere they could have a storyline. E.g

The volcanoes near the drakes home have finally erupted which despite providing the drakes a pleasant shower has left them without anywhere to keep their inner flame warm. So all the drakes have searched the neighbouring islands for what little sources of heat they can find; but after realising that there simply won't be enough to go around the drakes begin a civil war amongst themselves. Little do they realise that their war has been destroying the beautiful coral city the mermen reside in, forcing a three way confrontation between your drakes another team of drakes and mermen. Once the dust clears on the remains of two fallen empires your drakes tire of the death of brethren so you travel to each suitable island finding that another drake clan has already taken residence. Not having a permanent home has left your drakes tired and weary making the nearby nagas think that they have a chance to strike and finish you, leaving your remains to feed the sea monsters instead of fighting the beasts off themselves. You eventually reach a suitable island that appears to have a wall of mountains going down the side. Out of the local swamps appears an army of saurians who are unhappy with your arrival and know of the enslavement drakes have performed on their kin. A final battle ensues where you defeat their army and force the survivors to work under your rule, but while everything seems calm naga depthstalkers who followed you here emerge to finish you off and drag you back to their home. You defeat them and it seems that you have found your new home however it is revealed that on the other side of the mountains is the land of wesnoth. (surprise you found a peninsula)

That is just an example that I made up on the spot because drakes are blank canvases which can be modified to suit the author's will.
To Alpha I see blank canvases as the easiest to work around and I point the finger at Authors for creating such repetitive scenario stories and everyone else for not suggesting more change to the status quo.
(so how was that for an EPIC post)

[Wesnothian]

Regarding what you said about the Orcs being ''baddies'', now I disagree with this,
If you could place your mind in an Orc's one, you'd know what he thinks, and I'm highly unsure
he's like: ''Kill! Kill! Kil! I hate you! You must die! Grrrahhhgggrrr!!! RAGE!! ATTACK!!'', it's something else.
But that's hard to explain, so I'll do my best: The Orcs are known for being aggresive, thats how it works on the Dwarves, Elves, and Humans side, but nobody knows what the Orc side is thinking or doing, Orcs might have a good reason to attack,
and maybe they aren't so aggresive afterall, you just have to watch the Orc's side. Let's take as example in combat, Elves engage the Orcs and Elves disgust the Orcs because they stink and are ugly and are aggresive, but the Orcs think that Elves a weirdo's with pointy ears and too white to be true, and a Orc will probably think ''I'm going to do this for my country'', or ''I'll fall, die for my country!'' or ''This continent is ours!'' or ''For our king! March on proud Orcs!'' or something similiar, now the sucky thing here is, the Orcs cant communicate good with other races, while the Dwarves, Humans and Elves can express eachother's feelings, words and communite good, but it's just that Orcs don't have that kind of thing in their nature, they are just different, that's how they are. Remember back in the days when people thought sharks were scary and aggresive creatures who will eat and bite the sh*t out of you? Not to mention the movie Jaws and Deep Blue Sea expressed it also that way, but if you watch National Geographic or Discovery, you'll see that sharks aren't so bad, divers actually swimmed with them, they were calm, some were aggresive but there were very simple explenations for it such as their territory getting threat by humans on the beach, or people throwing stuff in the water and sharks bites/eats it which causes harm. You have to see both sides of races to understand it all, currently majority of us accepts the side of Wesnoth itself thus thinking Orcs are bad aggresive creatures, but if there is a game made which focuses more on Orcs side, you'll see they aren't so bad.. I tried my best explaining this, I hope you understand.

[turin]

The game could have survived without the elves, my point is that whether they were a race of druids, gnomes or hyper intelligent apes they would fill the same role as the elves but would all be more interesting. I say this because the elves already have their traits set in stone after so many appearances in all forms of media so any major departures would result in players come on line yelling: waz uup wit teh elvis?
This could be easily circumvented with a race that fills the same role but allows much more creative control, which I hear is what developers like. (In case you were wondernig yes, if any other race was chosen adding Desert to the front of its name would let it fill the same role as the desert elves.)

I would disagree. A "race of druids" doesn't make any sense, since "druid" is an occupation not a race; gnomes are just silly; hyper-intelligent apes sounds idiotic. I would much rather play a game with elves than with any of those three alternatives.

Elves are fascinating because they are basically human with one small difference - they are immortal. This is much more interesting than some random race of "hyper intelligent apes" or somesuch.

IMO, in fantasy, less is more. It's better to have only some differences with the Real World than to have everything different. There's a reason most good fantasy has humans as a playable race in the first place - they're familiar. You never see good fantasy with the main races being Hyper-Intelligent Apes, Gnomes, and Aliens, because people wouldn't sympathize with any of the races, they'd just say, "wtf?" and leave.

I said the wood elves liked peace because except in rare cases such as the SOF campaign they are protagonists trying to keep themselves safe and certainly don't antagonise the player as much as orcs, drakes or undead. I haven't played it in a while but if I remember in ROW the elves betrayed the loyalists to keep wesnoth safe from the coming orc hordes when a war mongering race would have rather prepare for the attack so they could fight and die in glory.

In TROW, the elves didn't betray the loyalists to keep Wesnoth safe, they did it to keep themselves safe...

Anyway, I'm not going to argue that wood elves in Wesnoth are in any sense groundbreaking fantasy, and they are assuredly quite cliched, but is that necessarily a bad thing? I don't think you've established that it is.

The sidhe elves certainly didn't need to be elves as wikipedia puts it they were a supernatural race comparable to elves or faeries. Comparable meaning similar but not the same; so I have no idea why they had to be lumped into the elf breed when they could have just been a people defending the weakest links between wesnoth and the world they inhabit, which linked through faerie mounds. This would have given them some purpose while the sidhe elves have no story or reason for existing at all.
(If you would like to debate the validity of the wikipedia page then I will need to see a reputable page from the internet say that they specifically are elves.)

So, in other words, you've never even looked at the world of Orbivm (portrayed in Wesnoth through the Imperial Era) or played the IE campaigns, are so aren't even aware that the Sidhe are not part of the World of Wesnoth? Then I see no reason for me to defend the details of how the Sidhe are portrayed.

But I will say that the Sidhe are not, and were never intended to be, identical to the sidhe as seen in Celtic mythology, so that Wikipedia page is rather irrelevant to the discussion.

However that is why I believe imagination is the tipping point, the elves have had their time in the limelight and congratulations on them for that but wouldn't it feel so much more satisfying to create a new Wesnoth specific race in their place of the same quality? All mythical creatures had to be dreamed up so wouldn't you agree that with so much knowledge of them all and the tools at our disposal people in the 21st century could create beasts and humanoids to put those to shame? Personally I doubt that elves are the best fairy tale creature ever imagined that could fill the role but with the publicity they could it is assumed they are.

Put simply - no, I wouldn't agree. I think it's much more interesting to put a new twist on an old idea than to try to create something "new". The former is what fantasy is all about. Hell, that's what Tolkien originally did when he created elves as we know them today - he was drawing heavily from Celtic and Norse mythology. So I would much rather try to use elves in a way that is inspired by, but not limited by or merely imitative of, Tolkien's elves than make up some random s*** in an attempt to be unique.

I would also deny that "all mythical creatures has to be dreamed up", because I think that denies the reality of the organic growth of mythology, but that's a different topic altogether.

Oh and about that comment on the elves hair colour, perhaps you should take another look at the wood elf pictures to see that there isn't a brunette in the bunch; and Wesnoth does have all the elements of Tolkein's books which is why it is posted here so many times. So at least by coming up with something unique in the wood elves place you would eliminate all the LOTR's threads.

I think you misinterpreted me. I said that in Arda (Tolkien's world, often inaccurately called Middle Earth) elves are not blond, not that Wesnoth elves aren't blond. That was just one example of how Wesnoth elves are quite different from Tolkien's elves. The primary way is that Wesnoth elves are really good with the bow, while Tolkien's elves, contrary to popular belief, are not - at least no better with bows than with swords, spears, horses, etc. Elves in Tolkien are just better than men in general, and archery is just one of many skills at which they excel.

Plus there's also the fact that Tolkien was one of the most brilliant fantasy writers to ever live and the creators of the world of Wesnoth are, well, not.

I consider the elves balance and the orcs the generic baddies because we are never given a reason why orcs are attacking except that they have been paid to do so. There are no ceremonial orc pilgramages you interrupt, sacrificial rituals you prevent by scaring off the wildlife with your army or orcish training camp you discover. Just the same old, orcs will be rewarded for attacking you so they do.

Ah, but what you don't seem to recognize is that even that is different from how orcs were originally portrayed in Tolkien, which was as a race of corrupted elves. I agree it's been done several times before in D&D, Warcraft, etc, but the basic idea has evolved before, and it can evolve again... that's what I'm trying to do with orcs in Orbivm, actually.

I called the elves the balance faction because they defend their territory and are always the ones to take down evil empires but refuse to help one side out during minor skirmishes. To me that is balance, it could be changed by making a seed foreign to wesnoth germinate and spread out of control forcing the loyalists to raze forests; or a wildfire is spreading through the country side and to stop it the loyalists hack away at sections of the forest enraging the elves, but no reason for attack as detailed as these has ever come up in the discussions before two sides fight eachother.

Those both strike me as more silly than anything, actually. And I think the situations the elves face in both TROW and SOF are more interesting than either of them.

The elves have a departurre from this role in SOF where they are the antagonists which I like though an elf highwayman causing battles of those magnitudes seemed out of place.

Something that I think a lot of people don't realize about the elves in SOF (which I wrote, btw, so I 'm qualified to comment on it ) is that the elves who attack you aren't just random "highwaymen" - they're a group of rebel elves who oppose the treaty between Kalenz's elves and Wesnoth, and their claim of authority over that road is really just an excuse for them to attack Haldric II and steal the ruby, which they covet. So it's not really out of place, IMO. Though perhaps the dialogue could convey the situation better.

However the only time the orcs managed to break out of their box was in son of the black eye; but that conflict started from the loyalists randomly declaring war on the northerners for no reason other then bcause orcs are evil.

I do agree that how orcs are portrayed in Wesnoth is often quite cliche and boring. But often it is not, e.g. SotBE.

I haven't seen the fantasy you write

Well, you've played SOF, so you actually have. Though the World of Orbivm (i.e. the Imperial Era and associated campaigns) are more recent and IMO better fantasy (though the story of SOF is probably one of best I've written)...

but when I praised those races as blank canvases I meant that because they don't have a set personality like the elves or orcs; they could be moulded any way you choose and could therefore be made for brilliant storylines that would be out of place for the generic races. As blank canvases they all have many possiblities in how they could develop as races to be used in campaigns not just multiplayer factions to be balanced.

I would deny that elves or orcs have a set personality - every new work of fantasy can attempt to redefine those two races, though it has to do it organically. As I think I've said several times already in this post, IMO that's what writing fantasy is really about - taking what has come before and transforming it. Not trying to make something completely and altogether new.

The drakes are an interesting race

My problem with the drakes is twofold - 1) they're not very well done in Wesnoth, but more importantly 2) the very concept of a dragon-like, rather than humanoid, race offends me. You seem to agree with me on 1), but you have yet to comment on 2).

(so how was that for an EPIC post)

Oh, pretty damn epic.

[shadowmaster]

The game could have survived without the elves, my point is that whether they were a race of druids, gnomes or hyper intelligent apes they would fill the same role as the elves but would all be more interesting. I say this because the elves already have their traits set in stone after so many appearances in all forms of media so any major departures would result in players come on line yelling: waz uup wit teh elvis?
This could be easily circumvented with a race that fills the same role but allows much more creative control, which I hear is what developers like. (In case you were wondernig yes, if any other race was chosen adding Desert to the front of its name would let it fill the same role as the desert elves.)

I would disagree. A "race of druids" doesn't make any sense, since "druid" is an occupation not a race; gnomes are just silly; hyper-intelligent apes sounds idiotic. I would much rather play a game with elves than with any of those three alternatives.

Elves are fascinating because they are basically human with one small difference - they are immortal.

Few differences between humans and elves are more pronounced than the latter’s unusually long life - most, unless claimed by illness, accident or war, live a full two centuries. While some elves possessing a high magical aptitude have been known to live an additional full century, most elves begin to grow physically frail approaching their twentieth decade and pass away within a few decades after.

Does the "pass away" expression mean death (euphemism)?

[turin]

Does the "pass away" expression mean death (euphemism)?

Yes. At least, I can't think of anything else it could mean.

Huh, I didn't realize Wesnothian elves only lived two centuries. I think that's a recent addition.

Actually, that completely breaks the character of Kalenz and most of how the first half of Wesnoth's history (pre-HttT) connects with the latter half. SoF takes place in the 40s, HttT in the 500s, and Kalenz is alive during both of them. That simply couldn't have happened if elves only live two centuries, three at most.

Looks like whoever added that didn't stop to consider what that change would actually do the to Wesnoth history. Not cool.

[zookeeper]

Does the "pass away" expression mean death (euphemism)?

Yes. At least, I can't think of anything else it could mean.

Huh, I didn't realize Wesnothian elves only lived two centuries. I think that's a recent addition.

Yes, it's in the race descriptions that were done just before 1.4.

Actually, that completely breaks the character of Kalenz and most of how the first half of Wesnoth's history (pre-HttT) connects with the latter half. SoF takes place in the 40s, HttT in the 500s, and Kalenz is alive during both of them. That simply couldn't have happened if elves only live two centuries, three at most.

Looks like whoever added that didn't stop to consider what that change would actually do the to Wesnoth history. Not cool.

Sorry about that, it does indeed break the Kalenz reference in SoF, and LoW too. The SoF reference could be easily removed since it doesn't seem to be important at all, or Kalenz could simply be made immortal some way...he does drink some extraordinarily funny potion or something in LoW, doesn't he?

[turin]

Sorry about that, it does indeed break the Kalenz reference in SoF, and LoW too. The SoF reference could be easily removed since it doesn't seem to be important at all, or Kalenz could simply be made immortal some way...he does drink some extraordinarily funny potion or something in LoW, doesn't he?

The SoF reference is only there to tie in with LoW; it would work just as well if it was someone other than Kalenz who decided to ally with the humans. But if that was changed then LoW would have to be changed a lot. It might indeed be better to say that Kalenz took a longevity potion or something. Or we could just extend elvish lifespans to four centuries not two, and say that Kalenz was just rather long-lived...

This should perhaps be split to a separate thread.

[sam_waz_here]

So where did that thread about kalenz get redirected too? If it went to a developer only thread then I will post here my shock and dissatisfaction that the idea to white wash over kalenz lifespan was not shot down immediately.

This is the perfect oppurtunity to give the elves more depth; give Wesnoth a storyline how Kalenz achieved his long life span and the players will be able to see elves communcate on matters other then a coming battle. The elves could be shown in a new light with their differing opinions over a way for kalenz to increase his lifespan, whether he could take the responsibility and whether other elves want it for themselves. UTBS and Invasion from the unknown showed that the elves can have depth but this is the perfect oppurtunity to flesh them out and change them from the 2 dimensional characters I loathe so deeply. But if the developers all agree that a short edit in text is superior to adding depth to the elves beyond war, alliances, religion and nature then this smiley will demonstrate what words can not.

Anywho back on topic.

Elves are basically humans with one small difference -they have pointy ears. Besides any idiotic race of giant ants can be immortal it's all in how they are written. However if you beleive that the depth in elves comes in how a race of humans would deal with living centuries, then yes you could have a good campaign. But you would not have more than a race of immortal humans filling the same role but with one extra gimick say... Every member of their species dies if they do not consume an intelligent life within 30 days. They could choose what to consume so logically they could be used in every position the elves are but would always have that additional angle, will they betray the main character out of need or continue pushing their limit, that is up to the player to find out by continuing the campaign.
(In your response to this please come up with something backed by evidence not just some random saying like- Less is more. If that was the case lets take away their immortality and leave them as blank canvases which I also like.)

All good fantasies have humans as a playable race because a human's personality can change to fit whatever you like. Evil tyrant-sure, honourable paladin-of course. But with a 2 dimensional race like dwarves they always have to be an Evil tyrant that is greedy or a paladin that is greedy, you could disagree and say that not all dwarves are greedy but that would require the selfless dwarves to convince the other dwarves to pry themselves away from gold. But that would require additional writing which humans don't require. You may think that people would say wtf! when they see an unfamiliar set of creatures displaying human characteristics; but people will just as often see the new race as refreshing with something to challenge their usual ideas of how the races of wesnoth act. The only group to always do this is the noobs who will say wtf! to everything they don't understand but fantasy writers aren't meant to write fantasies for that demographic.

Would it really be such a leap to assume that druids, gnomes, hyper intelligent apes and even idiotic giant ants couldn't have also made the same decision to betray the loyalists and save themseves? They could all also be peaceful race... or warmongering races that know when they will lose a fight, but that is the use of the blank canvas. I will simplify this statement so there can be no mistake why I beleive cliche races are a bad thing. They prevent more interesting races from being created as in you add the the cliche races than the original ones and wesnoth becomes a very crowded place, and would the artists that draw the wesnoth maps appreciate that? They also deprive the game from something Wesnoth could become famous about. E.G P1: Hey man you played wesnoth its got these awesome giant ants. P2: Sounds interesting I will give it a try sometime. OR P1: Hey man you played wesnoth its got these awesome wood elves. P2: If I wanted elves I would have chosen one when I started playing WOW. P1: You know that Turin guy, one of the developers thinks gnomes are stupid? P2: Forget that then, I am going back to WOW to play with my lvl 70 gnome mage. (That last part was unneccesary but so satisfying to type)

Hmm I initally believed there were 2 sidhe elf races, one in multiplayer where the Ancestors use swords and the IE set that use maces. But if they are one in the same then I want to know why they had to be elves because I have played through all your IE campaigns so far.
(The following is off topic)
I am perfectly happy with how you basically lifted the roman legion and dropped them in IE since it is less cliche, excluding the elder scrolls series. Although I was unhappy with how the Tribune was so easily killed given their control of several legions of men, if the one we killed was just a middle class military officer then the reaction the elvish council had was just a bit over the top. Also are the beastiarians or what those barbaric style units are called based off: Gauls, the germanic hordes or the gladiators that led an uprising under Spartacus.
(We now return you to your regularly scheduled post)
So if the Sidhe elves are not intended to be like the actual Sidhe of legend then why did they need to be called sidhe? Seems that you could have made up any name for them and left Sidhe alone; so if someone else ever feels like making a Sidhe based faction the option would be there and they wouldn't have to call their more accurate version something else. (Just seems more considerate.)

I suggest you go to dictionary.com as it agrees with me on what fantasy is all about. Your idea of fantasy seems to be: elf version 2,3,4,5,6 until someone actually ventures past this wall against imagination. Then it will be whatever their idea is and everyone else does version 2,3,4,5,6. But to put in a sentence, imagination is what you use to build empires, imitated inspiration is what you use to impersonate them. If you want to write a story then go ahead, but if you draw heavily from Tolkein and Wesnoth becomes truly succesful then it will be compared to its source material which it can't compare. (No offense) If wesnoth is succesfull because of your ideas then there will be no comparison, only praise for being a revolutionary in fantasy writing. Oh and please point me to this other topic about the growth of mythology as I believe that mythology can only take great strides when someone is willing to break the mold; instead of going around in circles and hoping to slowly build up over decades while everyone has their own version 2 of the elf to compete with yours, and if theirs succeeds over yours then your elves will be forgotten.

Seems that the difference of wesnoth elves being superior at bows and Tolkein elves being all round superior is because Wesnoth is a game that needs balance and Tolkein could make what ever he wanted. You don't have to contend with Tolkein but if you draw heavily from tolkein then you will be compared. However all you have to do in fantasy is make your content better than every other version 2 elf developer and you will be succesfull. Seems difficult? Well it is but as long as you have good original ideas and hands to put those ideas to paper you can put Wesnoth into a league of its own and you will at least attract the audiance that has gotten tired of using elves in every other rpg they have ever played. To make it sappy just believe in yourself and you can achieve anything, maybe if your ideas are good enough then people will want to copy you instead; but it can never happen as long as you dream in the shadow of Tolkein.

I won't bother answering the next point about orcs just replace the word elf with orc and the word bow with whatever and the previous paragraph explains my opinion on the matter.

My next point was how the discussions before fights rarely explain why two sides are fighting to the death. Besides the explanations I gave for those reasons for war could be explained in a game. This makes them less "silly" than SOF elves who basically say. We want the ruby because you are on our territory with a magic ruby. This could be explained by them saying how they plan to use the rubie's power to eliminate Kalenz but no such details were provided. Then years later in the volcano. We still want the ruby, give us the ruby. In that time they could have done much more to destabilise Kalenz authority then wait for the sceptre to be made. In fact elven guerilla warfare would have made an interesting campaign and would have given an oppurtunity to frequently use the wose and elvish avengers ambush ability.

I will need more than one example of orcs acting in their own culture to call it "often". Though I will provide congratulations where it is due so I congratulate you for thinking outside the box for that campaign. I can't really answer the next point because of the freedom of fantasy, it is your choice which of your work you deem the better fantasy. After these debates I can see where you got the basis of your ideas from but as long as you are keeping your mind sharp and aren't killing your imagination with the idiot box then when you write your masterpiece I am sure we can all enjoy it.

I would deny that elves and orcs need to exist in Wesnoth- every new work of fantasy can attempt to redefine those two races, though it has to do it memorably- which i have given up hope on long ago. As I think I've said several times already in this post, IMO that's what writing fantasy is about- trying to make something compleately and altogether new. Not taking what has come before and transforming it.
That was your post I just edited it; because I feel like we are going in circles and I am losing hope that we will ever convince each other otherwise.

I do agree that they aren't well done in Wesnoth but if the effort is directed they could easily be fleshed out.
2) I disagree on comment two; I beleive that any race humanoid or not can be given humanoid intelligence and made likeable. I reccomend you read the book Toad Rage, Toad Heaven or Toad away. The main characters in them are cane toads in Australia who constantly see their relatives being run over because they are pests. However the author manages to make the characters relateable enough that you do feel for the Toads plight. He includes all the details of what toads do, how they eat all the native Fauna and kill predators with their poison but the reader still wants to see these toads survive. The point of that was that like the toads, drakes are currently considered random dragons to you. But that is because no one has put a face onto those drakes that we can relate to. Rather then see them as offensive because of their lack of humanity try to imagine their situation, trapped on an island with wings to weak to allow them proper flight, every species in the world wants them dead and despite all their strength and power they live in the shadow of the mighty dragons that preceeded them. It may be harder to apply human characteristcs to these random dragons but if you focus on their personalities and not their appearance it will come naturally, otherwise the Narnia series wouldn't have been so famous.
(btw score one more EPIC post to my tally)

[turin]

So where did that thread about kalenz get redirected too? If it went to a developer only thread then I will post here my shock and dissatisfaction that the idea to white wash over kalenz lifespan was not shot down immediately.

This is the perfect oppurtunity to give the elves more depth; give Wesnoth a storyline how Kalenz achieved his long life span and the players will be able to see elves communcate on matters other then a coming battle. The elves could be shown in a new light with their differing opinions over a way for kalenz to increase his lifespan, whether he could take the responsibility and whether other elves want it for themselves. UTBS and Invasion from the unknown showed that the elves can have depth but this is the perfect oppurtunity to flesh them out and change them from the 2 dimensional characters I loathe so deeply. But if the developers all agree that a short edit in text is superior to adding depth to the elves beyond war, alliances, religion and nature then this smiley will demonstrate what words can not.

It seems like you assume that every interesting idea is something that should be pursued. I agree that it could be interesting to have a storyline about how Kalenz achieved his long life span, but it is by no means necessary, and is probably a bad idea all considered, because Kalenz's life is complicated enough (see: Legend of Wesmere) and making it more so would just be clutter.

Elves are basically humans with one small difference -they have pointy ears.

Besides any idiotic race of giant ants can be immortal it's all in how they are written. However if you beleive that the depth in elves comes in how a race of humans would deal with living centuries, then yes you could have a good campaign. But you would not have more than a race of immortal humans filling the same role but with one extra gimick say... Every member of their species dies if they do not consume an intelligent life within 30 days. They could choose what to consume so logically they could be used in every position the elves are but would always have that additional angle, will they betray the main character out of need or continue pushing their limit, that is up to the player to find out by continuing the campaign.

Like I said above - you seem to assume that every interesting idea ought to be pursued and that the fantasy world is somehow deficient if it does not.

But also, your "extra gimmick" doesn't just make these elf-like beings slightly different, it would completely change how the race was portrayed in the fantasy. There would be nothing wrong with that portrayal, but if what you're going for is a portrayal of what humanity would be like if it were immortal, it would be counterproductive.

(If you don't see this - if you really think that your extra gimmick would allow them to be used everywhere elves were used but also other places - I really don't know what I could say to convince you otherwise; I see it as self-evident that that opinion is false. If you don't agree, we'll have to agree to disagree.)

(In your response to this please come up with something backed by evidence not just some random saying like- Less is more. If that was the case lets take away their immortality and leave them as blank canvases which I also like.)

Less is more.

Obviously you can't take away their immortality if what you want is to explore what humanity would be like if it were immortal - but you should take away everything else that isn't relevant, and leave them as human as possible in all other ways.

All good fantasies have humans as a playable race because a human's personality can change to fit whatever you like. Evil tyrant-sure, honourable paladin-of course. But with a 2 dimensional race like dwarves they always have to be an Evil tyrant that is greedy or a paladin that is greedy, you could disagree and say that not all dwarves are greedy but that would require the selfless dwarves to convince the other dwarves to pry themselves away from gold. But that would require additional writing which humans don't require.

But you agree it could be done, right? So what's the issue? Writing good human characters is hard too. Writing fantasy at all is hard. But it's no harder to portrayal dwarves as not two-dimensional than it is to portray a race of immortal ants as two-dimensional - and, almost assuredly, much much easier.

Would it really be such a leap to assume that druids, gnomes, hyper intelligent apes and even idiotic giant ants couldn't have also made the same decision to betray the loyalists and save themseves? They could all also be peaceful race... or warmongering races that know when they will lose a fight, but that is the use of the blank canvas.

Um, if the fantasy world was making any attempt to be plausible whatsoever, it wouldn't have the loyalists arrive and immediately agree to ally with the elves - if it was a race of hyper intelligent apes or idiotic giant ants, they would scream "wtf are those?!" and attack them.

I mean, really. You can't have humans treating non-humanoid creatures in the same way that they would treat humanoid creatures - it's simply not believable. Which means that if the kind of interaction you're going for is the kind between humanoid creatures, you need humanoid creatures. In other words, elves.

But in any case, I never said it had anything to do with it being plausible that these other races would behave the same. Re-read my quoted text.

I will simplify this statement so there can be no mistake why I beleive cliche races are a bad thing. They prevent more interesting races from being created as in you add the the cliche races than the original ones and wesnoth becomes a very crowded place, and would the artists that draw the wesnoth maps appreciate that?

I agree you need a limited number of races.

They also deprive the game from something Wesnoth could become famous about. E.G P1: Hey man you played wesnoth its got these awesome giant ants. P2: Sounds interesting I will give it a try sometime. OR P1: Hey man you played wesnoth its got these awesome wood elves. P2: If I wanted elves I would have chosen one when I started playing WOW. P1: You know that Turin guy, one of the developers thinks gnomes are stupid? P2: Forget that then, I am going back to WOW to play with my lvl 70 gnome mage. (That last part was unneccesary but so satisfying to type)

Dialogue between me and almost everyone else I know:
Me: You played Wesnoth it's got these awesome giant ants?
Them: WTF? Are you on crack? That sounds idiotic.

Hmm I initally believed there were 2 sidhe elf races, one in multiplayer where the Ancestors use swords and the IE set that use maces. But if they are one in the same then I want to know why they had to be elves because I have played through all your IE campaigns so far.

No, you're right, the Sidhe in the EE and IE are different. I wasn't sure which one you were referring to so I based my response on the one that worked better for my argument.

They had to be elves because they were supposed to be immortal, and the term "elf" would be a handy way to communicate that information. Basically similar to how Dante in the Divine Comedy references well-known literary and real-life public figures so that people will already know their basic background, what their sins are, etc, and he can jump right into the interesting stuff.

(The following is off topic)
I am perfectly happy with how you basically lifted the roman legion and dropped them in IE since it is less cliche, excluding the elder scrolls series. Although I was unhappy with how the Tribune was so easily killed given their control of several legions of men, if the one we killed was just a middle class military officer then the reaction the elvish council had was just a bit over the top. Also are the beastiarians or what those barbaric style units are called based off: Gauls, the germanic hordes or the gladiators that led an uprising under Spartacus.
(We now return you to your regularly scheduled post)

Germanic hordes.

So if the Sidhe elves are not intended to be like the actual Sidhe of legend then why did they need to be called sidhe? Seems that you could have made up any name for them and left Sidhe alone; so if someone else ever feels like making a Sidhe based faction the option would be there and they wouldn't have to call their more accurate version something else. (Just seems more considerate.)

Because though they're not based on the Sidhe, they are inspired by them, loosely.

I suggest you go to dictionary.com as it agrees with me on what fantasy is all about.

I don't think dictionaries are really relevant for this sort of discussion.

Your idea of fantasy seems to be: elf version 2,3,4,5,6 until someone actually ventures past this wall against imagination. Then it will be whatever their idea is and everyone else does version 2,3,4,5,6. But to put in a sentence, imagination is what you use to build empires, imitated inspiration is what you use to impersonate them. If you want to write a story then go ahead, but if you draw heavily from Tolkein and Wesnoth becomes truly succesful then it will be compared to its source material which it can't compare.

I find this view more laughable than anything, given that Tolkien himself was definitely doing what I describe fantasy as not what you describe it...

If wesnoth is succesfull because of your ideas then there will be no comparison, only praise for being a revolutionary in fantasy writing. Oh and please point me to this other topic about the growth of mythology as I believe that mythology can only take great strides when someone is willing to break the mold; instead of going around in circles and hoping to slowly build up over decades while everyone has their own version 2 of the elf to compete with yours, and if theirs succeeds over yours then your elves will be forgotten.

Every great work of fantasy must both break the mold and be heavily based on what came before. You can't just come out of the blue and say "behold my race of giant immortal ants!" (And I disagree that if my ideas are successful that there will be no comparison - Tolkien, whom we seem to take as a great example of a fantasy writer, is constantly compared to what came before him. There's nothing wrong with being compared to your predecessors - really, it's preferable than the alternative.)

But you can make good works of fantasy without breaking the mold at all, which is what Wesnoth does. The World of Wesnoth is not particularly ambitious, and was never intended to be.

Well it is but as long as you have good original ideas and hands to put those ideas to paper you can put Wesnoth into a league of its own and you will at least attract the audiance that has gotten tired of using elves in every other rpg they have ever played. To make it sappy just believe in yourself and you can achieve anything, maybe if your ideas are good enough then people will want to copy you instead; but it can never happen as long as you dream in the shadow of Tolkein.

Yes, a league that no one else would be interested in playing in or buying tickets to come see.

(BTW, you should probably stop misspelling Tolkien as "Tolkein" - it's starting to get on my nerves. )

My next point was how the discussions before fights rarely explain why two sides are fighting to the death. Besides the explanations I gave for those reasons for war could be explained in a game. This makes them less "silly" than SOF elves who basically say. We want the ruby because you are on our territory with a magic ruby. This could be explained by them saying how they plan to use the rubie's power to eliminate Kalenz but no such details were provided. Then years later in the volcano. We still want the ruby, give us the ruby. In that time they could have done much more to destabilise Kalenz authority then wait for the sceptre to be made. In fact elven guerilla warfare would have made an interesting campaign and would have given an oppurtunity to frequently use the wose and elvish avengers ambush ability.

SOF isn't self-sufficient, it needs to be seen in context - why the elves want the ruby is explained in other campaigns such as TROW and LOW. But I agree it's not perfect.

I would deny that elves and orcs need to exist in Wesnoth- every new work of fantasy can attempt to redefine those two races, though it has to do it memorably- which i have given up hope on long ago. As I think I've said several times already in this post, IMO that's what writing fantasy is about- trying to make something compleately and altogether new. Not taking what has come before and transforming it.
That was your post I just edited it; because I feel like we are going in circles and I am losing hope that we will ever convince each other otherwise.

Yeah, we're probably never going to convince each other, but it is interesting.

I do agree that they aren't well done in Wesnoth but if the effort is directed they could easily be fleshed out.
2) I disagree on comment two; I beleive that any race humanoid or not can be given humanoid intelligence and made likeable. I reccomend you read the book Toad Rage, Toad Heaven or Toad away. The main characters in them are cane toads in Australia who constantly see their relatives being run over because they are pests. However the author manages to make the characters relateable enough that you do feel for the Toads plight. He includes all the details of what toads do, how they eat all the native Fauna and kill predators with their poison but the reader still wants to see these toads survive. The point of that was that like the toads, drakes are currently considered random dragons to you. But that is because no one has put a face onto those drakes that we can relate to. Rather then see them as offensive because of their lack of humanity try to imagine their situation, trapped on an island with wings to weak to allow them proper flight, every species in the world wants them dead and despite all their strength and power they live in the shadow of the mighty dragons that preceeded them. It may be harder to apply human characteristcs to these random dragons but if you focus on their personalities and not their appearance it will come naturally, otherwise the Narnia series wouldn't have been so famous.
(btw score one more EPIC post to my tally)

Anthropomorphic fiction is different than fantasy, IMO. Not that I don't enjoy it, but it doesn't operate under the same principles. But that would be another post altogether, and I've already spent thirty minutes writing this one, so...

[shadowmaster]

instead everyone deserves to be educated so they will not make the same mistake twice; which I am attempting here by not insulting you in kind because I assume we are both older then thirteen. The only apology that will be made is that I can not judge facial/body expression or vocal tones from text, this ability is beyond us so we must therefore imagine what the other person is typing; for all I know you could say that you are posting humourously but are in fact punching the wall with rage that I offended you, but as I was taught from a young age, never assume.

Interesting.

[Wesnothian]

instead everyone deserves to be educated so they will not make the same mistake twice; which I am attempting here by not insulting you in kind because I assume we are both older then thirteen. [...] but as I was taught from a young age, never assume.

Interesting.

I laughed.