[Historical] Liberty

This is the place for discussing development of mainline campaigns, reporting bugs in them and providing overall feedback.

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Ewan
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Joined: July 29th, 2004, 4:50 pm

Post by Ewan »

scott wrote:I suppose a lack of feedback indicates a lack of interest, but I would like to hear if anyone at least finishes it. In any case, it was fun, and that is what it is all about.
No, lack of feedback indicates satisaction :-).

I have not played this latest iteration yet, but will do so pronto. However, the campaign up to then has been very, very enjoyable. However, given request for critique/feedback:

1. No explanation for why Harper is important is given, and it would be nice. I assume 'future leader' or some such, but still.
2. The campaign seems to be very variable in scenario difficulty. I had problems with the queen's cav initially, for example; that particular scenario strikes me as an excellent example of what can be done on a small map. Later on, killing off liches was very tough, too, and levelled units are very much needed (unless willing to sacrifice many units, which is likely possible but just not my style). And this is on easy; I think the difficulty is significantly higher than mainline campaigns (not a bad thing, just to note).
3. The 3-lich scenario got honestly a bit boring toward the end, as I fought through the walking corpse wave from the SE lich. Plus, the shadow mage never left his keep, and I guess I was a little disappointed not to see some special 'shadow' ability or some such.

OK, I'll go through the new stuff, and post more if you'd like.

EDIT: Correction, playing on normal difficulty. I do recall having initial trouble with the queen's cav even on easy, but the 3 liches (Gray Woods) were only really hard on medium. Sorry.
scott
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Post by scott »

Hey thanks. I ended up putting more of the family connection between Harper and Baldras into the dialogue in the last scenario, but you're right - it would help to know this stuff up front.

The gray woods is supposed to be the hump in the campaign. I just now played The Rise of Wesnoth and discovered my gray woods are very similar to the Oldwoods, even down to the music choice and fog. I want to say for the record this was a complete accident and will be willing to change it if requested. When writing it I was thinking of the Return of the King when Aragorn goes into the eerie canyon to get the undead army. It may be fog and underground.ogg are just the best way to make a spooky woods in BFW.

Regardless, the shadow mage keeps wanting to recruit mostly thieves, but I will work on that.

For the 'playable story' levels I had a hard time with the difficulty. For example, when you try to sneak into the town, basically there is no difference between the difficulties. I gave easy some more turns in case they made a mistake and got attacked, but that was it.
Hope springs eternal.
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Ewan
Posts: 103
Joined: July 29th, 2004, 4:50 pm

Post by Ewan »

scott wrote: For the 'playable story' levels I had a hard time with the difficulty. For example, when you try to sneak into the town, basically there is no difference between the difficulties. I gave easy some more turns in case they made a mistake and got attacked, but that was it.
Fair enough. I actually screwed up with baldras once - but he survived (!) the iron mauler attack. The patrols outside the city seem like xp bait, but I would have thought that they would have some method for signalling the city-bound folks (not a big deal either way).

Just ran through the end of Gray Woods again, starting the Hunters; the inter-scenario graphic is one of the coolest things I have seen in Wesnoth. Many laurels.

EDIT: after playing through to end. SPOILERS.





Yes, the Harper relationship info would be goood earlier, as there's no reason to hide it.

Hunters worked well, good balance and interest.

The final assault seemed much too easy - slip a few footpads into the fortress from beyond the reach of the royal guards, and you win. I didn't even get to see whether the Shadow mages would actually show up (although I liked the paladin coming from Elensefar). I had the castle razed on (I think) T9, without real difficulty. [And was surprised to see that I could recruit Outlaws in this scenario, which was useful.] Would have been nice to have to play for rather longer; perhaps even need some forced delay (one of the outlaws, maybe even Baldras, has to vanish to retrieve a long-hidden plan of the fortress, or find a local he knows who would have the right knowledge, or something - said local could even be hiding in a villlage and have to be both found and brought adjacent to Baldras, perhaps. Anyway, something).

Most important: there's a bug in the epilogue, so that only the first sentence shows and then it cuts to "The End". I was startled and disappointed at the abruptness! Looking at the scenario file, I see lots more text, but it does not appear (0.8.4, OS 10.3.4).

Thanks again for the campaign!
scott
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Post by scott »

Hmm... I would like to pin down this bug. I have it working under BFW 0.8.3 and 0.8.4 (on a OS 10.3.5 system). That makes me think it's not the WML, but I don't know what else would cause this. Hitting escape maybe! (you're missing out on some more eye candy)

Has anyone else encountered problems with the epilogue?

If you pick option 1 or 2 at the end of the woods, the head rogue mage never shows up in the final scenario. However, I did improve option 2 so it is comparable with option 3 now and you may get to see some shadow mages in action that way.

Maybe I'll add some more parapet guards in the fortress. This may sound weird, but although the assault sounds from the dialogue like it should be really hard to do, I didn't want the last level to be an ultimate hardness level. However maybe this opinion wrecks the feel of the story.


EDIT: I added some guards for each turret. I think it plays a lot better now, and you spend a lot of your time at the entrance fighting to get in just like you would in real life.


EDIT #2: All future updates for this campaign will be posted via the campaign server. If you don't want to use it, let me know and I can post it elsewhere.
Hope springs eternal.
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Ewan
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Joined: July 29th, 2004, 4:50 pm

Post by Ewan »

scott wrote:Hmm... I would like to pin down this bug. I have it working under BFW 0.8.3 and 0.8.4 (on a OS 10.3.5 system). That makes me think it's not the WML, but I don't know what else would cause this. Hitting escape maybe! (you're missing out on some more eye candy)

Has anyone else encountered problems with the epilogue?

EDIT #2: All future updates for this campaign will be posted via the campaign server. If you don't want to use it, let me know and I can post it elsewhere.
OK. I just got impatient - the end scenes work well (and the eye candy is very tasty!), just slow for my taste. No bug.

I've never used the campaign server, but have no real objection - just something else (minor) to learn.

All campaign folk: the 'eye candy' *really* added to my enjoyment here. Plea for more!
MadMax
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Post by MadMax »

Three things I want to steal from your campaign:

the rogue mage halos, to be used when thunder spirits appear
the flourish sound (I already have the rumble from DM), for the last scenario
the closed trapdoor, for the second scenario

May I use that?
"ILLEGITIMIS NON CARBORUNDUM"

Father of Flight to Freedom
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turin
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Post by turin »

campaign server is only in CVS, right? so it might be beneficial to release versions here until 0.8.5 comes out...-


[edit]
hm,,, i downloaded. interesting campaign. 3 questions.

1) why must all of the units be specials (young peasant, village elder) when they have the same stats as footpads and bandits? it gets annoying. if it has to do with them eventually advancing... just know that you CAN put [+units] in the campaign IF_DEF. i use it in Saving Elensefar. and when you do that, it will let you overwrite the files using the same unit names.

2) shouldn't the people you have to keep alive be different types of units, with different stats, images, etc, from normal units? it gets hard to tell whom you have to keep alive.

3) is the first scenario possible? it seems like if the enemy runs north immediately, he will get there before you can do anything about it.

sorry if these are stupid questions, they're just my first impressions after playing for about 5 minutes on this campaign.
For I am Turin Turambar - Master of Doom, by doom mastered. On permanent Wesbreak. Will not respond to private messages. Sorry!
And I hate stupid people.
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scott
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Location: San Pedro, CA

Post by scott »

> Mad Max: feel free. Since GPL is thrust upon campaign publishers, I really can't say no. The trapdoor is an edit of the eastern invasion open door (so now there's a full set!). The flourish is courtesy of the United States Air Force ("Adjutant's Call" for parades). Shadow Mage halos are 100% homegrown.

turin wrote: 1) why must all of the units be specials (young peasant, village elder) when they have the same stats as footpads and bandits? it gets annoying. if it has to do with them eventually advancing... just know that you CAN put [+units] in the campaign IF_DEF. i use it in Saving Elensefar. and when you do that, it will let you overwrite the files using the same unit names.

2) shouldn't the people you have to keep alive be different types of units, with different stats, images, etc, from normal units? it gets hard to tell whom you have to keep alive.

3) is the first scenario possible? it seems like if the enemy runs north immediately, he will get there before you can do anything about it.
1. I will definitely change the +units tag. I am playing TROW now and my Bandits are starting to gain experience for L3! So it will fix that, among other things. The special units have a full upgrade line and they exist only for effect. If you finish L2 you'll see why.

2. I would be willing to use hero graphics because I think your point is valid. There are 4 footpads but one can't die? Confusing. But, if you see my rogue mage line, you may think I'm not the person to do the graphics.

3. In the same attention-to-detail vein, you really need to be aggressive with your fast units and follow the dialogue advice.
Thanks for the feedback.


Edit: here's a link to version 1.1.1

Edit #2: v1.1.1 causes corrupt save files. I don't think putting [+units] in the #ifdef works for savegames.

Here is a link to version 1.1.2:
http://www.cis.rit.edu/~slk8779/wesnoth ... v1_1_2.zip

Sorry for any inconvenience.
Hope springs eternal.
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ott
Inactive Developer
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Post by ott »

What is the minimum version of wesnoth required to play Liberty? I'm having problems getting it to run with 0.8.
scott
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Location: San Pedro, CA

Post by scott »

It's possible going back versions can break things. It uses a fair amount of WML, and even little things such as [if] tags and [not] tags were updated since 0.8. I developed and playtested on 0.8.3+

Could you tell me the following?
1. your installation directory
2. what version of the campaign (1.1.1 has a major bug)
3. the scenario or error message you get


EDIT: I know what the problem is. Liberty needs to be played on a version of the game that uses gettext, i.e. 0.8.3 or later. The text strings and units use gettext format, i.e. string= _ "blah blah" and id=Unit and name= _ "unit name". This messes up 0.8.0-0.8.2 (and 0.7+ and 0.6+...).

As much pain-in-the-assery gettext caused for me to compile, it appears I have fully embraced it in campaign design! Now that things have slowed down I might actually rewrite it (as a different version line) to be 0.8 compliant. It's only 9 scenarios and about 16 unit id's... but this still leaves some possible WML issues lurking out there.
Hope springs eternal.
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MadMax
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Post by MadMax »

In the shadow mage unit file, you need an equals sign between hitpoints and 38.

Also, in the avatar file, you need to have 'race=monster' instead of 'race=Monster'.
"ILLEGITIMIS NON CARBORUNDUM"

Father of Flight to Freedom
http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/FlightToFreedom
scott
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Location: San Pedro, CA

Post by scott »

Thanks. I don't know how I missed that. But I may have changed it recently and done it. Avatar... I should take him out!
Hope springs eternal.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
MadMax
Posts: 1792
Joined: June 6th, 2004, 3:29 pm
Location: Weldyn, Wesnoth

Post by MadMax »

scott wrote:Thanks. I don't know how I missed that. But I may have changed it recently and done it. Avatar... I should take him out!
I'm going to put an even better avatar in my campaign. It will have a 50-hex ranged attack.
"ILLEGITIMIS NON CARBORUNDUM"

Father of Flight to Freedom
http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/FlightToFreedom
Karisma
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Joined: October 5th, 2004, 10:18 pm
Location: California

Post by Karisma »

I downloaded your latest version of this scenario, but it doesn't seem to work for me. It gives me the following error when I try to click on any of the difficulties:

The game could not be loaded: load_game_failed: Unit not found: 'Bandit-Peasant': canrecruit="1"
controller="human"
description="Baldras"
experience="25"
gold="100"
hitpoints="50"
side="1"
type="Bandit-Peasant"
'

Won't let me load the game at all. I'm playing on Wesnoth version 0.8 on a Mac OS X.
joshbosh321
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Location: East Brunswick, NJ

Post by joshbosh321 »

same as with your other problem, charisma, you need 0.8.5 and, more importantly, the campaign server. If you can't wait a few days, Sithrandel already has a cvs build up with the campaign server - go hereto download.
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