Wesnoth 1.13.1 Remarks

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afre
Posts: 11
Joined: July 28th, 2015, 4:15 am

Wesnoth 1.13.1 Remarks

Post by afre »

Hello All. It's been a while since I last touched Wesnoth. I've jotted down some remarks on 1.13.1. Let me know if you'd like me to elaborate on something.

A. Campaign (HttT-Eng-Normal → probably true elsewhere)
- Script
-- Could be more consistent and flow better. (Such is open source.)
-- Could have more flavour text; e.g. better shipwreck details.
-- Could use a history window to review dialogue; like storyboards.
- Music
-- Could be purposeful again; e.g. undead scenario → undead theme.
-- Some tracks still suffer from abrupt transitions / endings.
- Fog of war / shroud
-- Isle of the Damned had this at one point(?) (Difficulty setting?)

B. Multiplayer
- Game load is slower than before; esp. match opening, with all AI.
- Could have presets for quick setup; e.g. 1 Human vs all AI [Type].
-- (Example implementation: OpenRA.)
- Leader named "Anonymous player #" when player isn't "local player".

C. AI
- Experimental AI
-- Suicidal tendencies (sub-optimal positioning)
--- Tries to go to occupied tile. Ends up next to occupied tile.
--- Ditto, but occupant dies mid-turn. Ends up next to empty tile.

D. UI
- Recruit / recall could be organized better; esp. when lots of units.
-- Sort by and filter, for recruit; like recall.
-- Could group by unit type (function / race / level).
--- Display method: one of: linear, section or tree.

E. Graphics
- Animation
-- Drakes don't hover where they're expected. Actually they do...
--- Problem: animation setting changes commit AFTER turn end.
-- Flying drakes stop flying and stand to attack. (Missing animation?)
- Scrolling between turns: artifacts at top-left corner under toolbar.
-- E.g. illumination drawn there instead, or are duplicated.
- Title screen map and wood perspectives don't match.
-- Actually OK when map is large on screen at certain resolutions.
- Resolution
-- Why separate settings for Windowed and Fullscreen mode?
Last edited by afre on August 14th, 2015, 3:59 am, edited 4 times in total.
aquileia
Inactive Developer
Posts: 120
Joined: August 25th, 2012, 5:13 pm

Re: Wesnoth 1.13.1 Remarks

Post by aquileia »

Hi afre,
afre wrote: - Music
-- Could be purposeful again; e.g. undead scenario → undead theme.
-- Cool new tracks! Some still suffer from abrupt unnatural endings.
our 'Lords of Music' (the people in charge of creating/evaluating new tracks) decided that we have enough tracks several years ago. West was our last active LoM, but I fear we pretty much lost him over a discussion on GPL'd music: Some people nagged him about providing the 'modifiable source' files, but when he gave in and uploaded stem files (which was a lot of work because he uses a proprietary format himself), nobody cared.

Still, there's a lot more music than you might think - on the addon server we have West's Chronicles 1 & 2 (high quality) and UMC Music Books 1-12 (mixed quality).

Fortunately, the other suggestion is a lot easier: If you want to suggest changes as to which track is played in which scenario, you can
  • open the scenario files in data\campaigns\Heir_To_The_Throne\scenarios
  • edit the SCENARIO_MUSIC and EXTRA_SCENARIO_MUSIC to use other tracks
  • create a PR from them (if you don't know how to do that, I can help you with it)
If we agree with your changes, we could then easily apply them to the game.

afre wrote:-- Drakes don't hover over certain terrain anymore.
That's intentional - would you fly if you could just land on the ground below? It takes a lot of work to stay airborne.
afre
Posts: 11
Joined: July 28th, 2015, 4:15 am

Re: Wesnoth 1.13.1 Remarks

Post by afre »

Added a few points.

As for:
afre wrote:-- Drakes don't hover over certain terrain anymore.
aquileia wrote:That's intentional - would you fly if you could just land on the ground below? It takes a lot of work to stay airborne.
Should've been "Drakes don't hover where they're expected to." Changed notes to state the issue more clearly.
afre
Posts: 11
Joined: July 28th, 2015, 4:15 am

Re: Wesnoth 1.13.1 Remarks

Post by afre »

I've cleaned up my notes and added some more. Let me know if you'd like me to elaborate on something.

Devs: let me know if you'd like me to help with something specific. I'm not talented but am willing to learn. :eng:
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Nobun
Code Contributor
Posts: 129
Joined: May 4th, 2009, 9:28 pm
Location: Italy

Re: Wesnoth 1.13.1 Remarks

Post by Nobun »

West was our last active LoM, but I fear we pretty much lost him over a discussion on GPL'd music: Some people nagged him about providing the 'modifiable source' files, but when he gave in and uploaded stem files (which was a lot of work because he uses a proprietary format himself), nobody cared.
Bad news. I am a fan of what West did in those years.
I didn't know he provided his 'source' work... parhaps I could learn something...

However, strictly speaking about GPL license terms, a music file (.ogg, .wav, .mp3 or whatever) or an image file (.png, .bmp etc) is considered itself as a source file. While this state may be not clear in the GPL 2 license (wich imho is better than GPL 3 since it is more "open"), it is confirmed in the GPL 3 where this state is explicitly written.
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