Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

[JW]

I agree with the assessments of the first scenario. I've just begun playing through the campaign, though it does seem interesting in the 2nd level. I saved halfway through as I was playing it really late.

-edit-

I would also suggest that perhaps only L2 units are sent in the first scenario. I'm not sure that going to capture dragons would enlist the most skilled of the Wesnothian army. Perhaps skilled soldiers, yes, but the L3 units are supposed to be the most elite, which I would imagine would remain in the homeland to protect from invasions, etc.

Also, I would reduce the amount of gold the enemy sides have if this is the case, though of course, this is just my opinion, which may not coincide with what is envisioned for the story; this should be especially noted since I have only played through the first 1.5 scenarios.

The second scenario has been quite fun though, and reminiscent of Starcraft campaigns! Quite good!

[Nova]

StarCraft? Which campaign? Anyhoo:

Flight To Freedom

CARAVAN -- MISSION 4

Maybe the horses on the second map shouldn't move. These birds make the screen jump all over the place. It's too bad, because I love the idea of wandering drakes practicing their firebreath by picking crows out of the sky. Any idea why they move that way? (Specifically, it appears to be recentering the screen every tile that they move.)

This scenario appears to be impossible if the elves attack en masse. On my sixth run through it, two wolves went east and attacked the elves instead of going south and attacking me. This made a huge difference. The wolves are no trouble, but it kept the elves off of me for 2 turns. This, in turn, let me send a glider south and east. The bulk of the elven force pursued it and attacked it with a vigor that can hardly be explained. Leaving poor Mr. Kite to his fate, I could handle to small squads of elves that got in my way. Still, I lost several guys. I can't believe what crummy defence drakes have on every type of terrain.

After decimating Mr. Kite, the elves returned to destroy my army. Surrounded by foes about to attack, I just shaved the last HP off of the caravan. Malakar gloats about the money, and (I guess) simply walks away from about 10 bloodlusting elves.

The tipping point for this map seemed to be if the wolves interrupt the elves or not. 2 wolves did no appreciable damage, but I don't believe the map can be won if the elves simply head straight south.

It's a short enough map that you can probably leave it this way. Every time I lost, I simply restarted. Still, not eveyone may have even that tiny measure of patience.

Like many of the maps, this one could use some visual variety. Maybe throw down a few tiles of unimportant swamp in the areas no one goes in.

And do explain the elves via some dialogue.

BLUE RIVER -- MISSION 5

Oh, no. It's Kogw. I'd almost forgotten about him. The first time through this campaign a couple of months ago, I lost more games because of him than because of any other reason. He has no appreciable defence and no ranged attack, nor is he particularly nimble. Malakar makes some crack about sacrificing him. Let's hope it happens, this time.

I'd like to see Malakar's thoughts about the return of the elves. He has no real reason, yet, to hate them. He hates humans (except pirates), but maybe his character could be fleshed out by commenting on the situation. "Death to the enemies of freedom," "I weep to have to crush the innocents, but my people deserve an escape," "Freaking elves! They stink! I hate them!" These hackneyed lines all change his character in different directions. You know Malakar better than anyone; what's going on in his head?

I don't like the clipper unit. 9 movement allows it to outpace even my glider scouts (8 movement), rendering them useless. It has pierce damage, so my guys are just knocked out of the sky. The picture could use some work, too, frankly. Fire damage should work nicely, but I just can't ever seem to hit the little boats. If the humans are meant to own the seas, perhaps they could start with a clipper blockade or something.

Ooo! Perhaps a blockade could be mentioned in a cutscene. Then there's a tangible reason to fight the humans, rather than just running immediately. (The humans follow anyways.)

The clipper, when destroyed, becomes a shipwreck. I love this. Love it. Love it.

I like attacking the horses; it makes me feel like Trogdor. In fact, I'm going to rename a unit "Trogdor" right now.

Control of the ocean allows the humans to keep a steady flow of new pikemen heading north after the elves fall. This makes it tricky to actually make it to the human castle in time. I beat the mission with my last unit's last attack on the last turn. It was exciting. This tells me that the mission is certainly winnable, if difficult. I find myself wishing I'd spent more money at the beginning. I ended the mission with 50 coins and a whole lot of badly wounded but nicely leveled drakes. Since I didn't spend quite everything, I could imagine a conclusion that's still challenging, but not quite as desperate as mine ended up being. I don't recommend any real changes to this map.

[MadMax]

All right, I'm back. My friends decided to focus on Enemy Territory, instead of Wesnoth, but I'd still like to see Flight to Freedom polished and included in the canon. In that spirit (remember, the spirit is I like this campaign and want to help), I offer my comments.

Dont worry; I'll never turn away free critiquing (unless it's mindless, ie. "ur lvl sUks U dum n00b")

OPENING CINEMATICS

Frankly, you’re going to lose people here. The paintbrushed question mark makes the campaign look amateur, right out of the gate. For the time you’ve put into this, you need to be able to hold their attention longer than the introduction. In fact, just taking the question mark out and showing some drakes standing around would be reasonable.

Like this?

Another group of people might quit after this one. Players don’t yet have a meaningful bond with the race or the characters, and getting swamped by unbeatable foes is extremely disheartening. I realize that’s probably your goal; but unlike the captured drakes, players can just walk away from a bad experience and never return. I’d suggest either making this a cutscene, or adding some goal that can be accomplished. For example, surviving 10 turns allows you to bury gold for a later mission. Maybe killing 25 units gives you a good idea of humans’ weaknesses and lets you start the next mission with fewer Slaves and more Workers. Something like that.

I'll try to make a simple cutscene out of it, but it's not guaranteed to work out.

As is, it’s mostly frustrating. And slow. About half of the horsemen don’t want to cross the mountains and just ride uselessly back and forth. It’s dull to watch, especially when the ultimate outcome is blindingly obvious.

I'll remove the horsemen from the recall list, and bring it down to level 2.

The next cutscene includes another paintbrushed image that needs reworking. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be lightning-blood, or what, but it needs replacing.

I agree, but I don't really have anything better, or the artistic skills to make anything better.

Is the boat voyage truly “many weeks?�

Yes, in order for half of the drakes to die.

If it was the baron’s idea to kidnap drakes, they’d probably be “presented� as slaves, rather than “sold.�

The baron did not capture the slaves. He only bought them from the Wesnothian army.

In fact, I’d like to see a complete script for the campaign, if I could.

I believe that there's a way to automatically generate one, which a translator would know.

REBELLION – MISSION 2

Shouldn’t the opening map be of Wesnoth, not Morgador?

I don't have a map of this section of Wesnoth, but the drakes would not have knowledge of Wesnoth geography anyway. Instead, I use dots to show the trip from Morogor.

the killing of the hatchlings is shocking enough that it should be a required event, rather than a triggered one.

There is no way to avoid the event, which will fire immediately if the overseer is killed.

In the art forums, there was recently talk of incorporating farms as a new graphic. You might want to get in on that, add some variety.

I've been following it, but I can't get in the discussion, since I'm not an art developer.

Speaking of graphics, perhaps you could replace the villages with wells or something. This takes place on one plantation, after all, and mini-towns seem out of place.

This is easy enough to do, but I'm not sure if I have any custom terrain slots left (I have 9 custom terrains already).

Can the horses be made to wander around?

Yes, but they could not be made to respect terrain (at least not with my knowledge of WML). That's why I restrict the wandering around to birds, which don't have to respect the terrain.

In this map, I first started to get really irked by how Malakar looks the same as everyone else. Some kind of jaunty cap would make a big difference.

I have an alternate set of Malakar graphics on my hard drive (done by fmunoz), which I can swap in for this.

I begin by dismissing a bajillion units – I will never pay that much to recall a level 0 hatchling. It’s annoying but unimportant.

I can remove the hatchlings from the recall list, and justify it by saying that their injuries prevent them from fighting.

The castle look takes some getting used to. I was bothered by the dirt walls until after the trapdoor, where I just stopped noticing. The first branch to the left was disappointing. I’d recommend putting a single spear there, or some kind of decoration. Even better would be a village slightly closer to the action. Healing would be nice – as is, there’s nothing for healing and my units tend to die in unlikely hits right before leveling up.

The castle look is all I have, although I have seen the dungeon tiles topic in the developer art forums.

I plan to turn the first branch to the left into a dining room, with table and chair graphics from A New Order.

Why is the castle haunted? I’d certainly keep it to one ghost, rather than spawning a second. They’re darned hard to fight. The best match-up I can do is 4-4 (50%) vs. (6-3) (70%) Drains. With a 3-tile corridor, the fight is necessary and often brutally damaging. It’s a tough fight out of the gate, which is fine, but it always leaves me with my workers pretty beat up.

I plan on adding another room, which would cast Prax III as a dabbler in dark magic (would explain why he is a shadow mage, as well as the hauntings). I can put healing potions in this room. As for the ghosts, I'll push the second one ahead a few turns, so that the player has progressed further.

I’d really like to see new pictures for the rebel and the guerilla. After the spears are collected, I’d really like to see them both able to be recruited. Perhaps a box of spears in the corner could act as a keep, with 1 tile for hiring new units. This’d change the balance, certainly, but it’s an uphill battle for the drakes.

Recruiting spear-wielding drakes should be easy enough, but I don't really like the idea of the second keep, because this would force the player to move Malakar into this room, where he cannot use leadership.

New thought: can you manipulate the code for the Mage of Light to create lamps? Some tiles would have pools of light that make it like daytime.

Yes.

make the northern corridor much, much longer.

I'm worried that this would cause the scenario to drag on too long.

The guy who carries the “key:� is that coding workable for the guys who carry spears? Might save some artwork time, in the short-run.

Yes.

It’d be nice if the trapdoor worked when you unlocked it, rather than forcing you to move off and then on again.

Yes, but if the unit that opens the trapdoor is automatically teleported to the other side, it might be killed immediately.

There’s a few grammar issues. Again, I’d be willing to help with that type of thing.

Sure.

Why does Malakar care about money? This is his first real dialogue, and should be used to establish his character, his anger, as much as possible. Instead, we get a confusing demand for gold – not freedom.

How about adding these lines:

Code: Select all

		[role]
			type=Drake Slave,Drake Worker
			role=question
		[/role]
		[message]
			speaker=question
			message= _ "Why do you want filthy human gold? What need do we have of it?"
		[/message]
		[message]
			description=Malakar
			message= _ "We will need funds, to finance our campaign of freedom."
		[/message]

I would also suggest that perhaps only L2 units are sent in the first scenario. I'm not sure that going to capture dragons would enlist the most skilled of the Wesnothian army. Perhaps skilled soldiers, yes, but the L3 units are supposed to be the most elite, which I would imagine would remain in the homeland to protect from invasions, etc.

I agree.

Maybe the horses on the second map shouldn't move. These birds make the screen jump all over the place. It's too bad, because I love the idea of wandering drakes practicing their firebreath by picking crows out of the sky. Any idea why they move that way? (Specifically, it appears to be recentering the screen every tile that they move.)

Because they are, an effect which I can remove.

This scenario appears to be impossible if the elves attack en masse. On my sixth run through it, two wolves went east and attacked the elves instead of going south and attacking me. This made a huge difference. The wolves are no trouble, but it kept the elves off of me for 2 turns. This, in turn, let me send a glider south and east. The bulk of the elven force pursued it and attacked it with a vigor that can hardly be explained. Leaving poor Mr. Kite to his fate, I could handle to small squads of elves that got in my way. Still, I lost several guys. I can't believe what crummy defence drakes have on every type of terrain.

I can disable the grouping behavior of the elves.

Malakar gloats about the money, and (I guess) simply walks away from about 10 bloodlusting elves.

I can explain this with dialogue.

Like many of the maps, this one could use some visual variety. Maybe throw down a few tiles of unimportant swamp in the areas no one goes in.

I agree.

I'd like to see Malakar's thoughts about the return of the elves. He has no real reason, yet, to hate them. He hates humans (except pirates), but maybe his character could be fleshed out by commenting on the situation. "Death to the enemies of freedom," "I weep to have to crush the innocents, but my people deserve an escape," "Freaking elves! They stink! I hate them!" These hackneyed lines all change his character in different directions. You know Malakar better than anyone; what's going on in his head?

I try to portray Malakar here as fighting the elves to secure Kogw's help (Kogw is a fugitive to the Elves).

What's going on his head? He does strongly desire freedom, but there is also an element of revenge in his thinking. Because of his enslavement, he strongly despises humans. However, he is a competent leader, and knows that he must leave Wesnoth. Consequently, he enters into an alliance with a human pirate, but is insulting to him in the beginning.

I don't like the clipper unit. 9 movement allows it to outpace even my glider scouts (8 movement), rendering them useless. It has pierce damage, so my guys are just knocked out of the sky. The picture could use some work, too, frankly. Fire damage should work nicely, but I just can't ever seem to hit the little boats. If the humans are meant to own the seas, perhaps they could start with a clipper blockade or something.

I'll change the clipper's movement to 8.

As for the blockade, it's coming in the very next scenario.

Control of the ocean allows the humans to keep a steady flow of new pikemen heading north after the elves fall. This makes it tricky to actually make it to the human castle in time. I beat the mission with my last unit's last attack on the last turn. It was exciting. This tells me that the mission is certainly winnable, if difficult. I find myself wishing I'd spent more money at the beginning. I ended the mission with 50 coins and a whole lot of badly wounded but nicely leveled drakes. Since I didn't spend quite everything, I could imagine a conclusion that's still challenging, but not quite as desperate as mine ended up being. I don't recommend any real changes to this map.

When the elves fall, you can recruit pirate schooners, and, possibly, take the seas.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Nova]

Dont worry; I'll never turn away free critiquing (unless it's mindless, ie. "ur lvl sUks U dum n00b")

Heh heh -- isn't that the way of it, though? "U sux i could do bettr in a half hour."

Good to hear, however. A couple of people on the forums seem kinda touchy. I would expect, with so many dedicated volunteers, that we'd be a bit more civil.

I'll try to make a simple cutscene out of [mission 1], but it's not guaranteed to work out.

Nothing's guaranteed, of course. Worst case scenario you make some changes, then delete the changes, right? I'd be willing to help if I can. I can photoshop, but have no "drawing" ability.

Is the boat voyage truly “many weeks?�
Yes, in order for half of the drakes to die.

Oh. Right. That makes sense.

The baron did not capture the slaves. He only bought them from the Wesnothian army.

Do we know who's ultimately behind this? I bet it's Li'sar. I never really trusted her.

There is no way to avoid the event, which will fire immediately if the overseer is killed.

re: Killing of the hatchlings.

I'm pretty sure the second or third time I played, I avoided any mention of the event by killing the overseer last. It wasn't an intentional test, but just worked out that way. I suppose it's possible I just missed it while enjoying my nachos or something.

This is easy enough to do, but I'm not sure if I have any custom terrain slots left (I have 9 custom terrains already).

I have no idea how that works. I stand down from this point.

I have an alternate set of Malakar graphics on my hard drive (done by fmunoz), which I can swap in for this.

...

The castle look is all I have, although I have seen the dungeon tiles topic in the developer art forums.

I plan to turn the first branch to the left into a dining room, with table and chair graphics from A New Order.

I plan on adding another room, which would cast Prax III as a dabbler in dark magic (would explain why he is a shadow mage, as well as the hauntings). I can put healing potions in this room.

Great! Any visual sprucing is nice; of course, gameplay is the real issue, but chairs and a new Malakar would get thumbs-up in my book. And potions would be nice. I found myself not taking the spears, because of their use as an instant heal started to outweigh their military use.

Recruiting spear-wielding drakes should be easy enough, but I don't really like the idea of the second keep, because this would force the player to move Malakar into this room, where he cannot use leadership.

Nova wrote:
make the northern corridor much, much longer.
I'm worried that this would cause the scenario to drag on too long.

If the unit that opens the trapdoor is automatically teleported to the other side, it might be killed immediately.

Points taken.

The new "gold" dialogue looks like it'll do just fine.

[Screen recenter issue] Because they are, an effect which I can remove.

Was it done intentionally to start with? I found it disorienting, but if you chose to have it that way, I don't wish to step on your toes.

When the elves fall, you can recruit pirate schooners, and, possibly, take the seas.

I did not realize that. A problem there is that Malakar would have to return to the Southern castle to have water access, and the scenario ran pretty tight for me as is. Maybe a narror river access to the elves' base? You could, I suppose, just make the scenario longer, but I like an attainable challenge. I'll try the scenario again with schooners, when I get the chance.

Thanks for the feedback!

Not a problem!

[Nova]

Could something like this be used in the opening scene? I have to imagine that drakes would be pretty curious about a ship appearing on the horizon. They'd probably all go look.

[wsultzbach]

Mabye you could apply some kind of effect to the background to make it blend in better?

[Nova]

Any suggestions? I haven't really experimented much with filters. The sheer number of them is a little overwhelming.

[Nova]

Flight to Freedom

SOUTHERN SHORE

Ah, yes. The blockade.

Both the schooners and the clipper look very "flat." Is it possible to raise the edges without distorting the pic?

The galleon and caravel look nice. And shipwrecks! Hooray! I love those.

There's no text displayed if you lose. Malakar could probably fly away, but that'd leave him without any way home. That's a bummer enough of an ending, really.

Two of the three times I played, the Luna didn't hire any help until the third turn, when I was basically on top of him. Maybe that's intentional, as that gave him enough money to buy almost a full compliment of level 2s. I don't know what to make of this. It might be fine, as all the money gets spent eventually, so it's not like he's at half strength.

Continuing note on the water levels: The bad guys hate, hate, hate my schooners and will ignore pretty much anything else to sink them. The Unforgiver is rarely targeted, and doesn't seem to be recognized as a scenario objective. Of course, this gives me a fighting chance to dramatically finish off the Luna in a mano y mano showdown while his army is beating up my level 1s. So maybe that's fine.

THE OPEN OCEAN

I really, really do not get this map. Malakar wants to fight the bad guys, Kogw wants to go south. If I go south, there are either no bad guys or one lone cuttlefish that displays the AI's established tradition of loathing my schooners. I can get the Unforgiver off the map, no problem, before the decoy is even all that damaged.

If I follow Malakar's advice, I can use the schooners as bad guy magnets and pick off the orc captain without too much difficulty with the Unforgiver. Then... nothing happens.

So the goal, I guess, is to hold down the "down" button until I win?

I'm immune to poison, right? It never seems to take effect.

I suspect the point of this map is to introduce an outlying orc outpost, in preparation for Landfall. I'd do a cutscene instead, or let people be surprised. As is, I spend the next two or three maps feeling like I've missed something important.

[MadMax]

Nothing's guaranteed, of course. Worst case scenario you make some changes, then delete the changes, right? I'd be willing to help if I can. I can photoshop, but have no "drawing" ability.

I'd appreciate the help, but this cutscene would probably be done with the Wesnoth gameplay engine, by making the drakes an AI-controlled side, and the player a spectator.

I did not realize that. A problem there is that Malakar would have to return to the Southern castle to have water access, and the scenario ran pretty tight for me as is. Maybe a narror river access to the elves' base? You could, I suppose, just make the scenario longer, but I like an attainable challenge. I'll try the scenario again with schooners, when I get the chance.

I'll put a notice in stating that schooners can be recruited.

Both the schooners and the clipper look very "flat." Is it possible to raise the edges without distorting the pic?

I don't have the artistic ability, but it's probably possible.

There's no text displayed if you lose. Malakar could probably fly away, but that'd leave him without any way home. That's a bummer enough of an ending, really.

I can add losing text here easily (and every other water level as well).

Two of the three times I played, the Luna didn't hire any help until the third turn, when I was basically on top of him. Maybe that's intentional, as that gave him enough money to buy almost a full compliment of level 2s. I don't know what to make of this. It might be fine, as all the money gets spent eventually, so it's not like he's at half strength.

Continuing note on the water levels: The bad guys hate, hate, hate my schooners and will ignore pretty much anything else to sink them. The Unforgiver is rarely targeted, and doesn't seem to be recognized as a scenario objective. Of course, this gives me a fighting chance to dramatically finish off the Luna in a mano y mano showdown while his army is beating up my level 1s. So maybe that's fine.

This isn't exactly how I intended the battle to play out, but I have no problems with this.

I really, really do not get this map. Malakar wants to fight the bad guys, Kogw wants to go south. If I go south, there are either no bad guys or one lone cuttlefish that displays the AI's established tradition of loathing my schooners. I can get the Unforgiver off the map, no problem, before the decoy is even all that damaged.

I intended this map to be a break from the standard formula of "kill all enemies". I'll try adding fog, and putting a swamp or island along the way to the bottom, to force the player to avoid it. I could also put some Tentacles in the water.

If I follow Malakar's advice, I can use the schooners as bad guy magnets and pick off the orc captain without too much difficulty with the Unforgiver. Then... nothing happens.

I had originally planned Open Ocean to involve the orcs sending nagas against the player, but then I decided to remove it. Killing off the orc leader in a prestart event should fix this.

So the goal, I guess, is to hold down the "down" button until I win?

For now, essentially, yes, although I should be able to make it a little more interesting.

I'm immune to poison, right? It never seems to take effect.

The ships are immune to poison, yes. My reasoning was that since ships are dead, they shouldn't be affected by poison, but I could call the cuttlefish attacks corrosive if I have to (which I shouldn't).


I love the storyline image, but can you please move the clasher and the slasher apart? They look like they're fighting.

[Nova]

LANDFALL

There's some confusion in the opening dialogue. Malakar says they've made landfall and the camera shows their new base, but then the first objective is to make landfall at the new base, and that takes a good four turns to do.

The opening dialogue is really quite long, and the view is of an empty castle. I'm a fan of cutscenes, and would be willing to help make some static images to pan over. Any variety is welcome variety.

The opponent is General Jake? That doesn't sound terribly Wesnothian. Here, of course, I'm defining "Wesnothian" as "name I can't pronounce easily," and I'm not really sure why that is the standard. Perhaps some story could be worked in wherein, I dunno, you fight off a family of brothers, one at a time. 'cept that's probably been done before. I'll think about it.

The goal of the map is to kill the enemy leader. There's two - it should be plural.

An easy way to add visual appeal in this map would be to make the coastline irregular. It's a straight horizontal line, as is, like no other coastline in the world.

A thought: I often say that the look of the maps need punching up in small ways. A very easy way to do that would be to add labels. The atmospheric difference between a patch of trees with archers and having to fight elves in the Forest of Bitter Hopes is huge. Any kind of history makes the story come alive, which is why Lord of the Rings is 20 pages of story and several thousand pages of sitting around campfires talking about ancient legends that have no bearing on anything. Darn it, Middle Earth is real now!

I reloaded this one a couple of times without winning because I kept losing a nice slasher to unbelievably lucky enemy attacks. When I finally won, it was because lightnings warped in and finished off the human opponent in his own castle. This is a cheap win, perhaps, but I like the thought that it's possible. Malakar is a hero, sure, but not even heroes have to do absolutely everything themselves. We all get lucky sometimes.

I like this level. Only late in the game did I realize that the Unforgiver was great for picking off pikemen on the western bridge. It made me laugh and laugh and laugh. I haven't tried going for the humans first, but it seems to work fine going south, first.

THE DRAKE ESCAPE

Well, the financial windfall from beating the last mission early (thanks, elementals!) gets whittled down here some. I only need to hire two gliders to beat this level -- this means I pretty much break even, then only carry over 80% to the next mission. All the gliders have to do is distract the elves for about two turns, then the Goblin pillagers show up to throw the elves in complete disarray.

The only trick to this level is keeping Kogw alive. Crippled grannies can outrun him on most terrains and a single human archer needs three turns to destroy him (curse those level 2s!). Eventually, I got lucky enough to kill someone when Kogw had 1 hp left, leveling him up and restoring his full health. Even so, he was down to 10 hp when Malakar made it to the caves. Malakar made a beeline and avoided the boar altogether.

There should be a compelling reason to keep Kogw alive, because I'd trade him for a level 1 fighter in a heartbeat. Granted, backstab is a nice ability, and a valuable one. He's just so fragile that I never dare bring him to the frontlines.

Malakar is right about cold-blooded creatures not liking caves. These next couple of missions are a drake deathmarch.

I like it when my enemies fight each other. I don't, however, understand why they ally. It doesn't seem like they share common goals. The orcs want everyone gone, and the humans... what do the humans want? The gold from Caravan is long gone, and using Orcs to kill drakes is a poor way for the humans to reclaim their powerful, violent, dangerous slaves. The elves, I assume, only care about Kogw for reasons that are a little unclear.

When Malakar escapes, way back when, he should steal something important. Something the humans want. Something that makes him different from a normal drake flameheart, maybe. If the baron is a necromancer, he's got to have some kind of valuable amulet or orb or something. All the necromancers I've ever met have nice stuff.

Malakar needs to realize that, yes, Kogw is going to say that every time. I laughed out loud the first time. Now I just want hatchlings to eat Kogw so Malakar stops chastising him.

[Nova]

I'd appreciate the help, but this cutscene would probably be done with the Wesnoth gameplay engine, by making the drakes an AI-controlled side, and the player a spectator.

A standard Hollywood trick is to imply scale. Rather than showing a full invasion with multiple human teams and whatnot, you can show a small patch of forest with drakes being surrounded. It’s faster to make, and faster to watch, while still pretty effective. Personally, I sometimes get bogged down when I think too large. Judging by the size of your campaign, it may not be a flaw that you share.

Both the schooners and the clipper look very "flat." Is it possible to raise the edges without distorting the pic?

I don't have the artistic ability, but it's probably possible.

Are the ships your design, or are they part of someone’s custom era? Are they one of the mainline’s “lost� units?
Does anyone know if it’s allowed to modify someone else’s design, or use their work as a base? In a way, that’s all that happens, since it’s an open-source project, but certainly we should try to offend each other as little as possible.

Re: The Open Ocean

This isn't exactly how I intended the battle to play out, but I have no problems with this.

Sounds good. It plays fine.

I intended this map to be a break from the standard formula of "kill all enemies". I'll try adding fog, and putting a swamp or island along the way to the bottom, to force the player to avoid it. I could also put some Tentacles in the water.

Good plan. It shouldn’t have to be a slog, but it could be a lot more interesting.

I love the storyline image, but can you please move the clasher and the slasher apart? They look like they're fighting.

I’d intended to have them be sparring, actually. I can make any number of changes, and I’d like to try to chain my pictures to specific events in the script. Any luck on compiling that, yet? I’ll do another version of that pic later. Glad you liked it!

[ArneBab]

The ships should be freely useable.

As far as I know all wesnoth campaigns must be GPL-licensed, so anything included in them should be free, but I could be wrong.

Besides: I utterly failed in the caves.

The dwarfs managed to get that small passage blocked every time (and occupied its end, so that it always was one of mine against three of theirs) and I couldn't get through and timed out.

Maybe they just have too many resources, so they can build too many units...

[bignall]

I just got to Return to Morogor. And suddenly, Malakar is back to being a Flare with no experience, my recall list is empty, and Kogw is also missing. What's wrong? Is there any way I can fix it so that I can keep playing?

[MadMax]

There's some confusion in the opening dialogue. Malakar says they've made landfall and the camera shows their new base, but then the first objective is to make landfall at the new base, and that takes a good four turns to do.

I can clarify that by making Malakar say "We have sighted land" instead of "we have made landfall".

The opening dialogue is really quite long, and the view is of an empty castle. I'm a fan of cutscenes, and would be willing to help make some static images to pan over. Any variety is welcome variety.

I wouldn't turn down cutscenes, but I can change the view to show the Unforgiver.

The opponent is General Jake? That doesn't sound terribly Wesnothian. Here, of course, I'm defining "Wesnothian" as "name I can't pronounce easily," and I'm not really sure why that is the standard. Perhaps some story could be worked in wherein, I dunno, you fight off a family of brothers, one at a time. 'cept that's probably been done before. I'll think about it.

The name's unimportant to the story, and I can easily change it.

The goal of the map is to kill the enemy leader. There's two - it should be plural.

That's a bug (the objectives should reflect the amount of enemy leaders, since Jake's transport could conceivably be destroyed before it lands).

An easy way to add visual appeal in this map would be to make the coastline irregular. It's a straight horizontal line, as is, like no other coastline in the world.

I agree.

A thought: I often say that the look of the maps need punching up in small ways. A very easy way to do that would be to add labels. The atmospheric difference between a patch of trees with archers and having to fight elves in the Forest of Bitter Hopes is huge. Any kind of history makes the story come alive, which is why Lord of the Rings is 20 pages of story and several thousand pages of sitting around campfires talking about ancient legends that have no bearing on anything. Darn it, Middle Earth is real now!

A good idea, but I'm worried that players would expect a backstory behind the labels.

There should be a compelling reason to keep Kogw alive, because I'd trade him for a level 1 fighter in a heartbeat. Granted, backstab is a nice ability, and a valuable one. He's just so fragile that I never dare bring him to the frontlines.

I could make Kogw a little bit stronger, or give him better defense percentages, but he's not meant as a frontline fighter.

I like it when my enemies fight each other. I don't, however, understand why they ally. It doesn't seem like they share common goals. The orcs want everyone gone, and the humans... what do the humans want? The gold from Caravan is long gone, and using Orcs to kill drakes is a poor way for the humans to reclaim their powerful, violent, dangerous slaves. The elves, I assume, only care about Kogw for reasons that are a little unclear.

I can give the orc and human leaders a few lines, saying something along the lines of drakes being a common enemy (the humans want their property back, and the orcs hate everyone else, including the drakes). I'm also thinking of having Kogw explain why the elves hate him, but I'm not sure of what I can put in as the reason.

When Malakar escapes, way back when, he should steal something important. Something the humans want. Something that makes him different from a normal drake flameheart, maybe. If the baron is a necromancer, he's got to have some kind of valuable amulet or orb or something. All the necromancers I've ever met have nice stuff.

Another good idea, but I would need to design the baron's lab first.

Malakar needs to realize that, yes, Kogw is going to say that every time. I laughed out loud the first time. Now I just want hatchlings to eat Kogw so Malakar stops chastising him.

I can make Kogw shut up after a certain number of spirits spawn.

A standard Hollywood trick is to imply scale. Rather than showing a full invasion with multiple human teams and whatnot, you can show a small patch of forest with drakes being surrounded. It’s faster to make, and faster to watch, while still pretty effective. Personally, I sometimes get bogged down when I think too large. Judging by the size of your campaign, it may not be a flaw that you share.

With this cutscene, I already have the code and map in place. All I need to do is transfer control of the drakes to the computer, and let the AI sides duke it out (of course, with the odds horribly lopsided against the drakes, to guarantee a human victory).

Are the ships your design, or are they part of someone’s custom era? Are they one of the mainline’s “lost� units?

The clipper and schooner are a chop job of the old mainline galleon, which has since been replaced. However, many of the other ships are Fynmiir's work, taken from his Naval Era (art is at http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... =naval+era ).

@Bignail: What version of FtF are you using? It should be on the splash screen when FtF is selected in the campaign menu.

@ArneBab: Yes, all Wesnoth campaigns on the campaign server must be GPL-licensed, and so you're free to take and butcher the assets my campaign uses (very little of the art is my work). Also, if you're talking about River of Skulls, try the patch I gave Hadrian on page 32 of this thread.

[ArneBab]

A good idea, but I'm worried that players would expect a backstory behind the labels.

I think that's the idea about labels, and when you use them, you or others can supply a backstory later on.

The first effect would be, that players feel more at home in the world, I think.

@ArneBab: Yes, all Wesnoth campaigns on the campaign server must be GPL-licensed, and so you're free to take and butcher the assets my campaign uses (very little of the art is my work). Also, if you're talking about River of Skulls, try the patch I gave Hadrian on page 32 of this thread.

I'll try it out, but it was "Caves" directly before "River of Skulls" which freaked me out.... I just couldn't get through that dwarven-block-squad
Went as far as having me activate dev-mode and just jumping to the next level after losing the fourth time because my time ran out (give me unlimited time and I would have beaten the crap out of the little cave-dwellers... just shedding some frustration. Normally dwarfs are as cool as any other fantasy race, butnot quite as interesting as draconic ones )