Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign

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H-Hour
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by H-Hour »

Scatha wrote:
Spoiler:
That should not have happened and I'm not entirely sure how it could have happened. It certainly works on my end and has always worked since the beginning. Can you attach a save game?

Also, had both players downloaded the addon or only one? I think I have heard of problems with new units in multiplayer if only one player has downloaded the addon.
Scatha
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by Scatha »

Here we go. The mage at 16,8 can level this turn by killing the wolf (perhaps after the poacher shoots it).

Edit: yes, both players had downloaded the add-on.
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04_-_Brigand's_Mire-Auto-Save6.gz
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jb
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by jb »

One major bug I found forced me to delete your add-on. The unit advancement for Blue Mages affects my default multi-player era. Since the Blue Mage is not a default unit, it will cause oos in other (default) games.

Basically, when a mage levels up in defalut, the option of blue mage is available in all games (not just Betrayal of Thaeylan).
My MP campaigns
Gobowars
The Altaz Mariners - with Bob the Mighty
H-Hour
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by H-Hour »

Scatha, thanks. Oddly enough, the following line appears in the save 9 times:

Code: Select all

advances_to="White Mage,Red Mage,Blue Mage"
I will try and investigate some more.

jb, I noticed this as well but wasn't aware of any work-around. Do you know of a way to do [advancefrom] without having it contaminate outside of its addon? Is there a way to define scope for the units in the addon? I am not too good with the unit wml.


Edit - Oh shoot! I think it's a gender issue with the Mage -> Blue Mage. It only seems to work properly on male mages! I'm not really sure why but I will search for a solution and try to get a fix out this weekend.
H-Hour
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by H-Hour »

Version 0.6.1 is now on the addons server:
- New unit trees separated from mainline to prevent OOS errors when playing regular multiplayer
- Scrapper and Scout lines had their terrain defenses adjusted to make them more vulnerable
- Female Mages can now level into Blue Mages
- Difficulty levels should be set properly for both players
Konrad2
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by Konrad2 »

after i loaded this campaingn down, it was also as campaign avaible
i tried out but it didnt loaded
are you tring to make that also as single played campaign or is that a bug?
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Bob_The_Mighty
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by Bob_The_Mighty »

Hi H-Hour. I played the 0.6.1 version of this campaign and was very impressed. It's a pleasure to come across a user-made campaign with a considered story and decent dialogue. I've only got as far as Brigand's Mire but the gameplay on the maps I've done has been nice and varied.

However, I ran into an odd bug and I have a number of suggestions. I'm only pointing out the faults because I think it has potential. :)

1. Although well written, there is simply too much dialogue at the start. I suggest putting the background infomation inside a [story] tag, leaving the first character message to begin the actual scenario. This way players can skip the background if they'e read it before, and you get to have a nice story pic.

2. There are many typos. At one point Herald is referred to as Harold which actually confused me. You need to run the dialogue through a spellchecker.

3. I was playing this with a friend as a local game with side 1 set to local player (on Windows XP). Almost every scenario we found that the order of the sides switched around, and once even the colour of our teams. This got confusing. It also meant that autosaves began at the start of player 2's turn. I'm not sure if this is a bug with your code, or a more general problem with playing multiplayer campaigns in local game mode.

4. The lack of animations for the customs units really bugged me. There isn't even any sounds, so if Synn misses all his ranged shots it isn't clear if he had attacked or not. I know it's nice to have images that are unique to the campaign, but until you find an artist why not use some unit sprites from elsewhere? The human commander from UtBS seems quite similiar to the pathfinder, while the commander from The South Guard might suffice for the Field Marshal.

5. I don't know if it is just me, but having a thief image for the scrapper tricks me into using the unit in the same way. Why not ask thespaceinvader if you could use his Landsman sprites?

If you need some help with coding any of these suggestions, I'd be glad to help. Good work!
My current projects:
MP pirate campaign: The Altaz Mariners
RPG sequel: Return to Trent
MP stealth campaign: Den of Thieves
H-Hour
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by H-Hour »

Konrad2 wrote: are you tring to make that also as single played campaign or is that a bug?
No, I'm only working on multiplayer. The single player option is probably a relic from the first campaign file I set up. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Bob_The_Mighty wrote: 1, 2
Thanks, I will look into them. I thought [story] tags only worked in SP, but I'll try them out.
Bob_The_Mighty wrote: 3. I was playing this with a friend as a local game with side 1 set to local player (on Windows XP). Almost every scenario we found that the order of the sides switched around, and once even the colour of our teams. This got confusing. It also meant that autosaves began at the start of player 2's turn. I'm not sure if this is a bug with your code, or a more general problem with playing multiplayer campaigns in local game mode.
I prefer to rotate which player starts first because in my experience the first player tends to have better options at killing enemy units and gaining XP. Maybe players who coordinate more closely can overcome this, but I prefer it this way. I will try and see if I can fix the colors so that each player will retain their color in spite of shifting sides, but the autosave in local game will probably still be a problem. Is there some way to code in a forced autosave in scenarios where player 2 plays as side 1?
Bob_The_Mighty wrote: 4. The lack of animations for the customs units really bugged me...

5. I don't know if it is just me, but having a thief image for the scrapper tricks me into using the unit in the same way....
Creating placeholder animations is something I plan to do before 1.0, but thanks for the alternate image recommendations. I'll take a look and see if they would work in the meantime. With the scrapper line, were you confused by the unit image being based on the thief or the fact that the scrapper used the thief's portrait image?
Bob_The_Mighty wrote:If you need some help with coding any of these suggestions, I'd be glad to help. Good work!
Many thanks for the feedback and the offer of help. If I have difficulties I'll let you know or post in the WML workshop. I have had very little time the last several months but I still hope to push forward on this campaign at some point. I have the alternate branch for scenarios 7/8 almost complete.
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Bob_The_Mighty
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by Bob_The_Mighty »

Bob_The_Mighty wrote: 3. I was playing this with a friend as a local game with side 1 set to local player (on Windows XP). Almost every scenario we found that the order of the sides switched around, and once even the colour of our teams. This got confusing. It also meant that autosaves began at the start of player 2's turn. I'm not sure if this is a bug with your code, or a more general problem with playing multiplayer campaigns in local game mode.
I prefer to rotate which player starts first because in my experience the first player tends to have better options at killing enemy units and gaining XP. Maybe players who coordinate more closely can overcome this, but I prefer it this way. I will try and see if I can fix the colors so that each player will retain their color in spite of shifting sides, but the autosave in local game will probably still be a problem. Is there some way to code in a forced autosave in scenarios where player 2 plays as side 1?
I can see the reasoning in your idea, but it works that way across the board. If switching the sides is confusing for players and leads them to assume it is a bug, it might not be such a good idea. Also, I forgot to mention that when we reloaded from the start of scenarios there was a bug with recall lists. At the start of scenario 3 I found I had the same units in my recall list as I did at the start of scenario 2. To get my proper recalls back I had to reload from the end of scenario 2 and progress to scenario 3.

An alternative idea: if you want player 2 to have a bit of an xp compensation, you could dish out some intelligent traits or put some easy kills in their way.

By the way, it was only the unit image that made me tend to treat the scrapper like a thief. This is entirely my fault though.
My current projects:
MP pirate campaign: The Altaz Mariners
RPG sequel: Return to Trent
MP stealth campaign: Den of Thieves
Konrad2
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by Konrad2 »

Also, I forgot to mention that when we reloaded from the start of scenarios there was a bug with recall lists. At the start of scenario 3 I found I had the same units in my recall list as I did at the start of scenario 2. To get my proper recalls back I had to reload from the end of scenario 2 and progress to scenario 3.
if you play local you get every time that proplem not just from scenario 2 to scenario 3
koan
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by koan »

I have played this campaign with my girlfriend last week and I'm impressed: it is very polished and it has a nice story. Nice work! When will the 10th (last?) scenario be completed? It was a bit of an anticlimax to us when we reached the unfinished end :P
Spoiler:
The ninth scenario was a little disappointing, though. Ryden hasn't much money, so he recruited few units. At one time I have seen him recruit a mage, who ran to the necromancer in the west but didn't reach it before I killed it, after which the mage turned to the other enemy, which it also didn't reach before we killed it. Other units Ryden recruited were faster but seemed to go on a suicide mission, because they were alone and ran recklessly into the enemy. This was a recurring experience: all the units Ryden recruited were just running around without any clue or were suicidal in their attacks, so their actions didn't make any sense. (His units that were already on the map did make sense.) I suppose this is because the AI isn't used to playing with a leader with a small army and little money. Maybe you can tweak something there? Also, Ryden himself was just standing on his keep the whole time, which was also quite useless. Maybe you can make him more 'reckless' to make it more of a challenge to prevent his death.
H-Hour
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by H-Hour »

Thanks Koan and Bob_the_Mighty for the feedback. I have had to pull away from this for the last few months because of real life commitments, but I am keeping track of the suggestions and will get back to this campaign at some point.

Koan, more comments in spoiler tags:
Spoiler:
koan
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by koan »

I don't seem to have the replay anymore (I tried a lot of new campaigns last week and deleted the save files and replays afterwards).

By the way, how many scenarios will there be when the campaign is finished? Is the tenth the last? About "the second chapter of the campaign" you mentioned, is this the second story arc, or what do you mean?
Spoiler:
And one point I found especially good about your campaign is that you make excellent use of new events during a scenario. A new enemy introduced after some time or a change of the objectives, at the times we encountered these events we sometimes thought "WTF!" but it added some sense of urgency and made the scenarios less predictable. Good work!
H-Hour
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by H-Hour »

I plan the final campaign to take place across 15 scenarios or less (with two short branches so there will be more scenarios made). More details about the second chapter in the spoilier.
Spoiler:
And thanks, I'll make sure to explain Ryden's situation a bit more clearly to the player at the beginning of the scenario.
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jb
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Re: Betrayal of Thaeylan: 2p campaign for 1.8.x

Post by jb »

I finally got around to finishing your MP campaign. I really enjoyed it. I thought your scenario design was excellent and your story was well written.

Very good work. I would recommend it to all.
Spoiler:
My MP campaigns
Gobowars
The Altaz Mariners - with Bob the Mighty
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