Winds of Fate

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SigurdFireDragon
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

Version 1.0.5 is up

Changes:
Make objective notes in S05, 06, 07, & 11 more blunt
S02: Slightly improve dialog
S04: Capitalization fix
S05: Dialog tweak for possible addition of nagas with ranged attack
S09: Improve flow of victory dialog
S09: Change gameplay and difficulty to eliminate tomato surprise
S11: Bump up turn limit
S12: Have saurian elders under player control
S12: Fine-turn enemy recruitment for slightly more clasher line units
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sub2pewds
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Wings of Victory - Wesmere

Post by sub2pewds »

I notice that the scenario "Wesmere" from the "Wings of Victory" campaign takes place, oddly enough, not in Wesmere but in the Grey Woods. This is clearly a mistake. Should the title of the scenario be adjusted accordingly?
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Pentarctagon
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Re: Wings of Victory - Wesmere

Post by Pentarctagon »

sub2pewds wrote: December 7th, 2019, 3:40 am I notice that the scenario "Wesmere" from the "Wings of Victory" campaign takes place, oddly enough, not in Wesmere but in the Grey Woods. This is clearly a mistake. Should the title of the scenario be adjusted accordingly?
I've moved this into the WoV thread.
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SigurdFireDragon
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Re: Wings of Victory - Wesmere

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

sub2pewds wrote: December 7th, 2019, 3:40 am I notice that the scenario "Wesmere" from the "Wings of Victory" campaign takes place, oddly enough, not in Wesmere but in the Grey Woods. This is clearly a mistake. Should the title of the scenario be adjusted accordingly?
Nope. The Wesmere scenario takes place in Wesmere according to the current journey path.
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sub2pewds
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by sub2pewds »

Infuriatingly, even though I remember double checking this, I still somehow had some sort of brain malfunction. You're quite correct.
Wayirr
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by Wayirr »

I have seen the discussion from this thread, regarding sudden demainlining of this campaign. Unfortunately that thread is closed to public, so I'm writing in this one. I hope it's the right thread for this discussion. If it's not, please direct me to a more appropriate thread.

My opinion is that the main criterion of whenever some part of dialogue is accepted or not should be solely based on existing lore and logical reasoning, based on it.

The idea that modern European morals should be applied to fantasy creatures who are not even humans does not make any sense to me.

Come on, this is game about war and death. How we can judge drakes or former drake slaves for not adhering to modern European/American standards, regarding gender equality? It makes absolutely no sense.

And trying to craft game lore to adhere to particular political views is even worse.

I also have my opinions regarding global redesign of the whole campaign set, but I don't know which topic is the right one to discuss it. This one is locked.
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BTIsaac
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by BTIsaac »

Wayirr wrote: January 5th, 2020, 8:11 pm The idea that modern European morals should be applied to fantasy creatures who are not even humans does not make any sense to me.
That is my opinion as well. Not only are the drakes not human, there was an entire thread spawned by this one discussing whether or not they eat members of other sentient races, not to mention they are a hunter gatherer society. The idea that them not being a modern western style egalitarian culture is somehow unacceptable strikes me as incredibly contrived.

And furthermore, i recall a previous discussion that implied female drakes are drastically different from males, which is why they're treated the way they are (not unlike male spiders and angler fishes which exist purely for reproductive purposes - incidentally, if drakes were like that, i doubt anyone would be complaining).

I believe that this has to do with the mainstream perception that portrayal of a concept in fiction equals endorsement of said concept, so anything that isn't in line with modern sensibilities must be explicitly portrayed as immoral. I honestly find this to be patronizing, but then again, i don't dictate the modern zeitgeist.
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by The_Gnat »

Just to add in my opinion. :) I agree with the other comments, I was really shocked at the un-mainlining of WoV and think that the decision should be reconsidered.

EDIT: I do note, however, that it is best to not make anything that could be offensive to players of the game (but that should be a consideration for change rather than a reason for removal). :)
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BTIsaac
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by BTIsaac »

The_Gnat wrote: January 6th, 2020, 3:54 am EDIT: I do note, however, that it is best to not make anything that could be offensive to players of the game (but that should be a consideration for change rather than a reason for removal). :)
I like to believe players are more mature than that. I can understand holding back on something that is manifestly in poor taste, but this honestly seems mundane and inoffensive. If push comes to shove, it was already pointed out that all it takes is to prune a few potentially offending lines and the problem is solved. The claim that it cannot be done without a fundamental rewrite strikes me as odd.
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by The_Gnat »

BTIsaac wrote: January 6th, 2020, 7:58 am If push comes to shove, it was already pointed out that all it takes is to prune a few potentially offending lines and the problem is solved. The claim that it cannot be done without a fundamental rewrite strikes me as odd.
You have my full agreement. :)
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by Elder2 »

Then I will add my two bits as well.

Applying the same standards to drakes as to real life humans doesn't really make sense, and is wrong or even a bit disrespectful on some level, just by the virtue of putting the two in the same group. Drakes are not humans, in fact they are one of the factions in Wesnoth that has the least amount of human-like characteristics. So there is no reason to apply the same standards, I would even say that it shouldn't be done.

Doesn't mean the campaign was good, but one word doesn't make or break a campaign. The whole idea with female drakes might not be very good either, but that was never really the main point.
BTIsaac wrote: January 5th, 2020, 11:04 pm I believe that this has to do with the mainstream perception that portrayal of a concept in fiction equals endorsement of said concept, so anything that isn't in line with modern sensibilities must be explicitly portrayed as immoral. I honestly find this to be patronizing, but then again, i don't dictate the modern zeitgeist.
An author can make whatever story he/she wants, limited only by the quality of writing, application of concepts and internal consistency, an argument that portraying a certain idea=endorsing it is far fetched, the story is fiction so maybe the author wanted to portray a world where certain attitude is prevalent. In the end it boils down to whether you like a story or not.
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BTIsaac
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by BTIsaac »

Elder2 wrote: January 6th, 2020, 12:19 pm An author can make whatever story he/she wants, limited only by the quality of writing, application of concepts and internal consistency, an argument that portraying a certain idea=endorsing it is far fetched, the story is fiction so maybe the author wanted to portray a world where certain attitude is prevalent. In the end it boils down to whether you like a story or not.
That WOULD be normal, and up until a few years ago, we could all agree on this. Then something happened and suddenly all fiction must be trated as a soapbox, and portraying the wrong things gets backlash. For instance, a writer can portray that kind of attitude, but if they don't do it in a way that explicitly portrays it as immoral and villainous, they can expect some form of backlash that's amplified by social media.

Repeating my earlier point, I can see why putting things in a game that are manifestly offensive can be seen as a bad thing, but nowadays, most people who "take offense" aren't really taking offense, the internet just made outrage mongering very gratifying.
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Elder2
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by Elder2 »

BTIsaac wrote: January 6th, 2020, 1:14 pm
Elder2 wrote: January 6th, 2020, 12:19 pm An author can make whatever story he/she wants, limited only by the quality of writing, application of concepts and internal consistency, an argument that portraying a certain idea=endorsing it is far fetched, the story is fiction so maybe the author wanted to portray a world where certain attitude is prevalent. In the end it boils down to whether you like a story or not.
That WOULD be normal, and up until a few years ago, we could all agree on this. Then something happened and suddenly all fiction must be trated as a soapbox, and portraying the wrong things gets backlash. For instance, a writer can portray that kind of attitude, but if they don't do it in a way that explicitly portrays it as immoral and villainous, they can expect some form of backlash that's amplified by social media.

Repeating my earlier point, I can see why putting things in a game that are manifestly offensive can be seen as a bad thing, but nowadays, most people who "take offense" aren't really taking offense, the internet just made outrage mongering very gratifying.
Well, the whole argument is a sophistry and a kind of fallacy, and some people get such ideas, because of misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation of what "fantasy" is some people tend to believe such things like portrayal=endorsement, some people just want to control what you can and can't say.
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Hejnewar
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by Hejnewar »

For me its a bit different story, mainly because it wasnt very smart. After all what is happening is that you get women and eggs for adventure that likely will be suicidal and not only that but MC picks up every fight he can to ensure that there will be as many as possible chances of them all dying.

Next "he would be gifted with breeders" - this can be interpreted extremely differently - when I first time read that I didn't have any problem with that because what I imagined was eggs with breeders that take care of them (not even necessary females) and here we see extremely different approach of humans because gifting eggs doesnt sound bad at all but it's literally gifting children in drake case right?
Ok but to the point, drakes have very animalistic society but this is something that humans do / did not animals. In animal society usually males are kicked out of herds and they need to be accepted and only strong ones are and what we see in game is 2 strongest presumably groups of males that fight in order to be albe to create flight. In order to create one you need females, so they are fighting for females. No one said that females are unwilling and you can even have 2 groups of females so that no matter who wins everyone will be happy. (Actually what is happening with losers? My headcanon is that they just join some other flight.) And thus we made full circle where "gifted" might be just fancy word for something entirely different and is just not explained.

"he" is entirely unrealistic tho. I doubt that I need to explain why, it should be "his flight" at the very least.

Next is thing that not many people noticed I feel like, MC was not only "gifted with breeders" but also with hatchlings and eggs, why I assume that? Because "They had little time to prepare new flight" and unless they breed like rabbits its not possible to have kids in short amount of time. Also first hatching of flight was after fight vs dwarfs. So they were gifted with children (and that is also entirely unrealistic if they have parental feelings) but what is interesting - no one cared about this fact...

Now you could say that this is fantasy race and no laws apply. And it could be the case but I highly doubt that any species at any time would willingly gift its own children to anyone just because if they are taking care of their children they need to have developed in one way or another parental feelings (and this applies to eggs not only children) and if they have that feelings I highly doubt that every drake would just gift their daughters to some random group of drakes. But for now it seems that they don't have parental feelings in some parts but have them in other and that is just bad writing with a lot of unnatural paradoxes that can be easily solved.

(One more thing its possible that just males does not have parental feelings but usually males of species like that try to kill male kids or kids in general of their own species. And that is not happening here.)
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by Whiskeyjack »

Disclaimer: this post is more meta-discussion than WoV. I will keep it to this one post so as to not go too much off-topic, if you want to discuss further, send me a PM or open a thread elsewhere ;-)

(I also wrote this before reading Hejnewar's post)

To somewhat break this circlejerk about circlejerking PC culture:

When world building you should (as a good writer) do things for a reason. You take a setting and see what that develops into. Or you take an idea that you wish to explore and build around that. If you want to write something like strongly (meaning: females = "breeders") gender divided societies, which is quite divisive, you should do that for a very good reason. Now even if you do that, as a good writer, you would need to take into account how female members of society shape their world, because even in very unjust societies females don't just vanish behind the harem curtains and become irrelevant. Take Game of Thrones as an example: GRRM does a pretty good job at writing a strongly sexist society but still with interesting female characters that do stuff. It is quite self-reflected in what he writes about and it invites us to reflect on our past and on modern society. (And in his case certainly not an endorsement...)

If, however, you do none of those things, females are simply there to produce offspring (not even the Nazis were that simplistically gender divided and they had a very sexist and... ahem... recreationally oriented society...), and nothing of this is self-reflected or actually works with that setting in a way so the story can benefit from it - then that is, plain and simple, bad writing.

So you don't need to have PC thought control to advocate against such a story, because a) there are reasons to not write it (divisiveness) and b) no positive benefit from doing so. (In regard to the topic discussed. You could simply write the same story without the needless issue of controversy.) So yes, in that case the story becomes one of three things: 1) its bad writing; 2) it actually is an endorsement; 3) you write it, because you are an [censored] that wants to anger people. In any of those cases its quite reasonable to not include something like this in mainline...

Now with all that said, I haven't played enough of WoV to say if any of the above applies here, I am simply defending the position that some types of stories shouldn't be written (in good taste). Also, keep in mind that we are discussing mainline here - you could whine about thought control if someone were to police the addon server about this stuff. But if (see above, not my call) the accusations hold substance, the campaign should not be in mainline (without changes).

Edit: quick clarifications - and already I break my vow not to continue with going off-topic here...
  • Should have known Nazis would be a bad example - I didn't mean to insinuate anything here or invoke other associations (and yes, I meant procreation). It just sprang to mind as a society with divided gender roles focused on producing as much offspring as possible. Apologies.
  • The circlejerk statement was meant tongue-in-cheeck, could have made that clearer.
Edit2: Since apparently even my last edit wasn't clear enough and I already stepped into the hornets nest: I did not intend any associations or hidden implications by mentioning Nazi Germany. It was thoughtless of me to pick them as a historical example (which was all I intended) of a gender-divided society. For anyone having trouble believing that allegation I'll just leave this link here... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Nazi_Germany
Last edited by Whiskeyjack on January 6th, 2020, 7:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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