Invasion from the Unknown (1.9.99) for Wesnoth 1.4

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Iris
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Post by Iris »

I know. I was balancing that last night and this is what I decided:
scenario 2:
* Easy: 49 turns
* Medium: 47 turns
* Hard: 45 turns

scenario 3:
* Easy: 58 turns
* Medium: 55 turns
* Hard: 53 turns

I just didn't have time when I published the update. :wink: But now these are the numbers that I got. Still have to playtest them, as I was a bit busy writing scenario 5 (Crossfire), where you have the typical fateful choice scene. See TRoW scenario 2 for an example of what I mean with "fateful choice" (WML-wise).
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Post by Iris »

Published 0.0.3. 4 scenarios done, 2 balanced. 2 scenarios unplayable, and 2 unused maps, which should be in the next release.

I won't get around to publish any newer versions until September 24th, so I'll probably have version 0.1 published and play-tested by then, with at least 10 scenarios complete.
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Post by MadMax »

I had a look through your WML, and I noticed some things:

1. You're using an old version of npc.cfg (from FtF). It's been updated to fix a bug that can ruin savefiles.
2. You need to call the {VICTORY_MUSIC} and {DEFEAT_MUSIC} explicitly in [endlevel] tags to get them to fire (for starters, in your {__DEFEAT} macro.
3. You still have some wesnoth-Flight_Freedom textdomains lying around (all in units/monsters).
4. The {TREMOR} macro needs to be renamed to avoid conflicting with a built-in macro (or you can add #undef TREMOR before it).
5. {SLEEP} and {DELAY} are duplicates.
6. amla-custom.cfg contains only a textdomain declaration.
7. terrain-graphics.cfg still refers to terrain "ylb" (lava bridge in FtF).
8. The not_living tag in units/boats.cfg is deprecated.
9. You don't need to copy over images/flags/flag-* , as they're already in Wesnoth.
10. images/items/burial.png and images/items/bonestack.png are redundant.
11. Your ellipse graphics are redundant.
12. changelog, readme and todo need a .txt extension.
13. You should run pngcrush on all your .png images.

However, these are mostly nitpicks. Also, there's multi-hex attack code in FtF that may be useful for your Goliath and Shadow Master (although it's only usable by the player), and Spacenoth may be able to furnish some other mechanical units and graphics.

Also, I would suggest that you remove your mentions of "demons", although they could be renamed. To quote torangan at http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... t=religion ,
torangan wrote:In short: keep religious references to the very common fantasy type (undead, white mage) or vague like utbs.
That way the only people you'll offend are fanatics and I don't care about hurting the feelings of fanatics at all. Would be ridiculous to do so in my opinion. On the other hand one should try to stay away from obvious references to existing religions and before adding such things at least some discussion should happen. For utbs the problem was discussed more then once over time and there were never before strong objections against including it.
There are also topics at http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... t=religion and http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... t=religion that address this.

But, other than this, your campaign looks good!
"ILLEGITIMIS NON CARBORUNDUM"

Father of Flight to Freedom
http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/FlightToFreedom
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Iris
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Post by Iris »

Thanks. Yeah, I still have in the To-Do list to rewrite part of the history to keep the religious issues aside. I'm anyway not sure of this stuff, because as this is not a mainline campaign (nor I intend it to be one, ever) I'm not forcing anyone to read a story that might be inappropiate for certain people.

1. I still have to sync it with your latest release, that's why I still don't use its macros in any scenario.
2. Oh really? Didn't know that, I haven't even tested the music in-game. :P
3. Yeah, and I'll clean them in the process of updating the attack animations structure to the one implemented in SVN trunk.
4. I feared that. I need to find the built-in definition to see if it's really worthy of keeping a custom definition there.
5. Blame me for not deciding a operation naming standard. I think I'm sticking with DELAY anyway, so there is no much point in keeping the duplicate SLEEP.
6. That's because I still don't get to write the custom AMLAs I want to write. Need to have scenario 9 written at least, where Elynia (the only unit with special AMLAs so far in my planning) appears.
7. Ouch.
8. Didn't know. Perhaps because I copied that definition from a Wesnoth 1.3.6-compatible chunk of code.
9. I actually have a good reason for that (besides not knowing if Wesnoth looks at <wesnoth-prefix>/share/images like it does at <wesnoth-prefix>/share/data/core/images). I still want to replace them with something better, less undead and more demonic, and I considered it a good idea to keep those duplicates as placeholders for that day.
10. Must be left-overs of my former campaign attempts - not published - which were for Wesnoth 1.1.2.
11. Um... (removes them)
12. Really? (Thinks about Windows users) Oh well.
13. pngcrush? OK, I'll research on that. Stupid GIMP, why can't it learn to optimize its output automatically? :wink:
14. Have to research on that as soon as I find the need for them. The multihex attack might be good for the second boss.

Sorry about the religious references, but I simply ran out of alternative ideas. I guess I'll put a disclaimer in the campaign description then. (i.e. remember A New Order and the mature content warning?)

I'm not really atheist, but my vision of the world is based in my own personal beliefs. People most of time think I'm atheist anyway.

Thanks for your time. I'll address the issues you mentioned in the next release. I'm already working on them actually.

- Also, I'm working on TC-ing and updating the shadows, amongst other things, of the unit graphics included. Note that not all of them are used yet.
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Invasion from the Unknown:Crossfire campaign does not finish

Post by tillea »

Hi,

I'm using a "near 1.3.8 CVS snapshot" I compiled myself on
Debian Linux. The attached savegame should fullfill the
requirements for a win of the scenario (killed all enemies and
leaders at western border), but the scenario does not end.

Kind regards

Andreas.

PS: Further remark: In the Scenario "Horrors from the Depths"
it needed some cheating to pass the river the second time.
I'd regard it nearly impossible without cheating. An option
would be to enable the own units taking the shortcut through
the river to takle the enemy from two sides.
Attachments
Crossfire-Autospeichern37.gz
Does not finish
(89.58 KiB) Downloaded 388 times
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Post by Iris »

I'll research on that. Although I'm 50% sure I had the same issue while on vacation, I still have to check it. (Crossfire... I even think I removed that objective for leaving less trouble to the players).

I'll upload version 0.0.911 within the next hours. 9 scenarios complete, play-tested, etc. etc. I also balanced scenario 3 if I remember correctly, but I'm not sure. I am considering to reduce the amount of enemies and add another secret road (or put a touchplate in the starting area to activate the secret road that already is there).
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Post by Iris »

BIG EDIT3: OK, OK, the religious issue, I have to fix it.
BIG EDIT2: Uploaded version 0.0.911 for Wesnoth 1.3.8 (release) and later.
Your savefile contains an objective that is no longer used, so I think I apart from removing the unused objective, I fixed something related to victory not triggering when you defeat the undead and loyalists.

Anyway, people should play again from the very beginning because of some balancement changes and other stuff that you should really be aware of or all your savefiles will be broken. Oh, well, to be serious you only need to play scenarios 3 and later again. Obviously, you might want to play the earlier if you want to acquire XP that you couldn't acquire with the older version.

Many graphic changes, including graphics by me, stuff, bla the bla. You ought to read the included changelog.txt if you really want to know what I did while on vacation. :)

Pngcrushed images and crushed the included music. 10 MB to 7 MB the campaign .tgz was the result.

Scenarios 1-9 complete. Scenario 10 is not playable because I did not finish it (I started it last night actually), so you can play until scenario 9 safely. Only scenario 10+ savefiles will be broken by future releases.

Play-tested and balanced, although that was by me, so you might still want to crush my head if something looks wrong or doesn't work. Scenario 7 is a boss scenario, so any oddities there might be intended, ask me in any case. Scenario 9 IS supposed to be that long. It at least took me 101 turns to finish it. Feel free to tell me how I should improve it.

I'm considering submitting it to Wescamp, but Torangan's instructions in the wiki kind of scared me. (Because of registering at berlios.de, using SSH, etc., all the non-WML part of the process).

BTW, I added story text, but it still lacks content and style. Specially lacks content in scenarios 7-10.

EDIT (Spoilers a plenty!): screenshot of me playing scenario 7, ~434 KB, for the curious: http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r176 ... sy-pal.png.
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Post by FireMaster »

Perhaps you could include the history of the Swamp Elves somewhere there?
Just because I'm a master of fire doesn't mean I'll light your "uber candle"
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Post by Iris »

FireMaster wrote:Perhaps you could include the history of the Swamp Elves somewhere there?
Give me incentive. Port it for Wesnoth 1.3.8+, I can't see it in the add-on server.
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Post by Iris »

Um, I'm preparing the 0.0.912 release, but with completion of Scenario 10 (The Source of Light) I could consider it a release milestone, so I'll probably release it as 0.1.0 within this week. I have the base code of that scenario completed, and the dialogues too, but I still have to make it more attractive for players with special objects and suchlike.

Also, it shall feature more art updates by me, and the inclusion of updated unit art and WML from Extended Era, in case I did not do it for last release (I don't remember, really).

Um, and I'll make sure no more WML deprecation messages are seen. I have updated 50% of the unit WML for that purpose, the other 50% remaining is still unused code, or code that was imported from Extended Era.

I know I could make it easier by asking players to download EE first, but I just don't want that. Also, my unit WML is a little more generic in comparison, and includes updated descriptions that I might or might not send to EE.

EDIT: no, no Swamp Elves. At one point I considered including Dark Elves, but I definitively dropped the idea in favour of UtBS's Desert Elves, which should feature close to the end of "episode" 3.
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Post by Iris »

0.1.0 released, with 10 scenarios complete. Reached a milestone at last. Not that it took me too much time to work on scenario 10. Actually, as soon as I got a good-looking Elynia sprite, I started and finished coding the same day, in a 10 hours span.

New features:
* Analia has her own portrait. Thanks to whoever made the Elvish Lady portrait used in HttT, at least on SVN trunk.
* A lot of things more, including critical bugfixes a lot, read the included changelog for more details.

It is in the 1.3.x branch campaign server since a 3 minutes ago.

Enjoy!
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Post by Iris »

Fixed a critical bug in scenario 2 with ai_algorithm=idle_ai and ai_special=guardian units which causes Wesnoth's engine to freeze. Should be in campaign server in two minutes. For the impatient, just remove the [ai] block from side 3's declaration of scenario 2's code.

Thanks Aethaeryn for spotting this. I thought people would tell me if something was wrong (people don't tell if something is right, so I supposed that...).

EDIT: Noooo!! I'm victim of a core engine bug or what? Please wait before downloading this unless you really want to skip scenario 2 via tricky tricks.
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Post by Iris »

Engine bug definitively:
https://gna.org/bugs/index.php?10112

I'll upload a fixed (workarounded) version as soon as the bug report is taken care of.
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Post by Tom of wesnoth »

Hate to annoy you but i think there i a bug in 2nd scenario.
If i could i would turn into a world ruler!
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Post by Iris »

The freezer bug? Read two posts above.
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