The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Review and rate user-made single and multiplayer campaigns and scenarios.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Post Reply
iMakepeace
Posts: 14
Joined: February 7th, 2016, 9:23 am

The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Post by iMakepeace »

My other three campaigns are Stranger in Wesnoth; Add's Army; and Sleuth Sisters.

1. For those who have played all four campaigns, which did you like most, and why? Which did you like least, and why?
2. For any or all of the campaigns, how were the difficulty levels? Did they fit with your expectations?
3. Related to this, how did the campaigns work on Hard difficulty? I freely admit that I'm better at coding than playing, so I don't test on Hard.
4. Are there any characters who you would particularly like to see again in future campaigns? Any you wouldn't?
5. Is there anything in particular that I do too much of/don't do enough of?

I'm not going to request any comments on the art, because it is improving, I assure you. "Stranger in Wesnoth" was my first serious attempt at drawing (at the age of fifty-mumble), and I've got a great deal better since, to the point where next time I update SIW it will include redraws of the worst of the art. (Vlachen. And the scene with the mermaid. I was pleased with them at the time, but they make me cringe now.)

Many thanks!
Stranger in Wesnoth - The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage - Add's Army - Sleuth Sisters - Return of Sir Charles - Comrades in Arms - Thrugbad the Good
ahmannar
Posts: 166
Joined: August 26th, 2012, 11:09 pm

Re: The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Post by ahmannar »

Have you uploaded any of your 4 campaigns on the 1.12 server? I can´t find them there.
iMakepeace
Posts: 14
Joined: February 7th, 2016, 9:23 am

Re: The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Post by iMakepeace »

Unfortunately I can't at the moment. 1.12 is not yet available for Ubuntu, which is my OS. However, as soon as the upgrade is available, I will re-upload the campaigns.

In the meantime, if you're interested in playing any of them, let me know by private message; I can e-mail them to you if you wish.
Stranger in Wesnoth - The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage - Add's Army - Sleuth Sisters - Return of Sir Charles - Comrades in Arms - Thrugbad the Good
User avatar
Aldarisvet
Translator
Posts: 836
Joined: February 23rd, 2015, 2:39 pm
Location: Moscow, Russia

Re: The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Post by Aldarisvet »

Hi.
I saw you uploaded already 7 (seven!!!) campaigns in the add-ons server for the short period of several months.
I havnt tried any of these but I am really surprised with the speed you presenting more and more campaigns.
Actually I personally cant believe it is possible to create something quality with such speed. May be you better concentrate on something. And, well, some of storyline arts could be improved.
I wish you luck with feedback.
facebook.com/wesnothian/ - everyday something new about Wesnoth
My campaign:A Whim of Fate, also see it's prequel Zombies:Introduction
Art thread:Mostly frankenstains
User avatar
doofus-01
Art Director
Posts: 4122
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 9:27 pm
Location: USA

Re: The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Post by doofus-01 »

Aldarisvet wrote:Actually I personally cant believe it is possible to create something quality with such speed. May be you better concentrate on something. And, well, some of storyline arts could be improved.
I saw this comment, and when combined with this OP comment
iMakepeace wrote:I'm not going to request any comments on the art, because it is improving, I assure you. "Stranger in Wesnoth" was my first serious attempt at drawing (at the age of fifty-mumble), and I've got a great deal better since, to the point where next time I update SIW it will include redraws of the worst of the art. (Vlachen. And the scene with the mermaid. I was pleased with them at the time, but they make me cringe now.)
I got curious and downloaded some of the campaigns and looked in the folders.

Who says the campaigns were produced quickly? They could have been in the works for years, then released in quick sequence. The art is amateur, but that is true for most art here, and it should be expected. I have no idea how representative my view is, but I'd rather see something with thought and effort rather than a quick recolor or cut&paste of the same images that always show up. The story art images are fine, improve them as you can and wish. Those images could be JPG, rather than PNG, and that will reduce your download size _significantly_.

Sorry I can't comment on the actual campaigns.
BfW 1.12 supported, but active development only for BfW 1.13/1.14: Bad Moon Rising | Trinity | Archaic Era |
| Abandoned: Tales of the Setting Sun
GitHub link for these projects
iMakepeace
Posts: 14
Joined: February 7th, 2016, 9:23 am

Re: The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Post by iMakepeace »

Doofus, thank you for the encouragement! My art (along with everything else) hit a block for some time, for reasons I'm about to explain, but I am now back in the saddle again and hope to pick up soon on the campaigns I started about this time last year.

Aldarisvet, thank you for the good advice. I have indeed been concentrating on something, to wit, recovering. Just under a year ago I almost died; I shall spare you the full medical details, having gone into them at length elsewhere, but suffice it to say that by all the laws of probability I should be six feet under. By the grace of God and the skills of an outstanding surgeon, I'm here today, but the road to recovery has been long and quite difficult. I had previously been aware that I was ill, but neither I nor my doctor had realised quite how ill.

The good news is that a) I'm alive; b) I do not, as I feared, have Parkinson's disease; and c) neither the illness nor the treatment has done any permanent damage to my cognitive functions. Expect more campaigns from me in future, complete with amateur - but, at least, original - art. ;)
Stranger in Wesnoth - The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage - Add's Army - Sleuth Sisters - Return of Sir Charles - Comrades in Arms - Thrugbad the Good
User avatar
doofus-01
Art Director
Posts: 4122
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 9:27 pm
Location: USA

Re: The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Post by doofus-01 »

Yikes! It must be good to have that behind you. Welcome back.

(I didn't mean to sound so arrogant in my previous post; "amateur" isn't really a bad thing, and I am certainly a member of that club too.)
BfW 1.12 supported, but active development only for BfW 1.13/1.14: Bad Moon Rising | Trinity | Archaic Era |
| Abandoned: Tales of the Setting Sun
GitHub link for these projects
iMakepeace
Posts: 14
Joined: February 7th, 2016, 9:23 am

Re: The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Post by iMakepeace »

Many thanks! :) I didn't think you sounded at all arrogant; that remark was aimed elsewhere.

I'm getting better all the time, but won't be back doing campaign work till I have my own place. I've been living at my sister's since I came out of hospital the first time (have been in twice since with post-op problems), but obviously that can't continue for ever, and we're trying to get me into some kind of accommodation where I can have an eye kept on me for medical reasons. Watch this space!
Stranger in Wesnoth - The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage - Add's Army - Sleuth Sisters - Return of Sir Charles - Comrades in Arms - Thrugbad the Good
User avatar
Graaaaaa
Posts: 3
Joined: June 17th, 2017, 8:54 am

Re: The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Post by Graaaaaa »

Thanks for creating this campaign, here's my feedback.
I'm not completely adverse to some secrecy or mistery about the scenario objectives, but in this case it's a bit excessive and makes the gameplay frustrating, without reason. Having to restart the scenario after 15 (or worse, 60) well played turns makes me want to quit the game, uninstall and never play a campaign again. I strongly advice you to include more detailed hints and scenario objectives.
Free as a bird
CristianCantoro
Posts: 1
Joined: August 16th, 2016, 7:07 pm

Re: The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Post by CristianCantoro »

Graaaaaa wrote:Thanks for creating this campaign, here's my feedback.
I'm not completely adverse to some secrecy or mistery about the scenario objectives, but in this case it's a bit excessive and makes the gameplay frustrating, without reason. Having to restart the scenario after 15 (or worse, 60) well played turns makes me want to quit the game, uninstall and never play a campaign again. I strongly advice you to include more detailed hints and scenario objectives.
I completely agree. I like this campaign, but there is too much guesswork involved and I needed to restart several scenarios. There are too many things happening with no hint whatsoever, especially some are tied to the actions of the main characters so you need to move one of the main characters in a specific place. Also, every scenario uses a different logic, so if you try to apply the logic that you saw in a previous scenario, well, it won't work.

I also take the occasion to point out a couple of bugs.

In "The prisoner" the hint about how to get into the chamber and free the prisoner appeared at the end when I had no Silver Mage (I spent experience leveling up white mages) and I had already defeated all enemies and the additional training quintaines. I had no other choice but restarting.

In "School of Engineering" it is unclear that the only quintaines that need to be defeat are the one inside the palace (purple faction) and the ones in the garden do not matter. Furthermore, it is not clear that they keep spawning so you need to focus on them with all the units that you can control otherwise you will run out of turns. The first time I played this scenario, I had (in addition to the 3 main characters), an Elvish Avenger which I wasted on destroying the quintaines in the garden (orange faction). I was able to defeat the quintaines in the palace but I finished at the last available turn (15, I am playing on easy).

In "Homeward Bound", there is a hint, but only if you come close to the castle with Alatos. It took me a while to understand that I could recall the prototype on the castle square. One bug that I found is that the hint was repeated at the beginning of each turn (even after the castle exploded).

In "A disappointment", the same problem as above, but in a new way. I played the scenario the first time and defeated all the bats. I thought that the idea would be as in "School of Engineering", meaning that I needed to kill all the bats and they would have stopped spawning. Imagine my surprise when I saw that they kept spawning. I replayed the scenario and thought that maybe since our Dwarwen protagonist like forges I should visit the room with the lava with Alatos. Bingo! Still, it is not clear at all if you will you acquire the bonus for neutralizing the bats in the end. So I kept playing and moved Alatos to the little castle near the cave where bats spawn. There is some hint about the weak terrain that I have interpreted as "I need to recall a prototype that would explode and seal the cave" (again, trying to apply the same logic as in "Homeward Bound"). I did so, but again nothing happened, so, out of frustration I reached the signpost and - surprise - I got the bonus for the bats.
There are two bugs in this scenario: the first is that quintaines spawn also in the lava and the walls, and the bats spawn in the walls when the room is full, in some cases, they are also able to escape through the walls.

In "The Bridge of Size" I did not understand the winning condition altogether. I played once and decided to try a "recruit and run strategy". I have recalled a keep of my highest level veterans and run through the bridge. I arrived on the other side and nothing happened. Note that I lost a unit while traversing the bridge because I thought it would be a good idea to have a couple of expendable units. I replayed the scenario just running to the other side and this time it worked. (I tried another variant where I recalled all my veterans because the scenario says "all the surviving units", spending all of my gold and getting all units that I could on the other side of the river, but it didn't work). Now, I am wondering if the problem was getting all the units on the road or getting to the other side with no kills.

The last scenario "Stronger together" should say that it is this the last.

So, the campaign and the story are nice, but there are way too many secrets and puzzles which are hard to get. For example, in "The Temple of Darkness" there are 4 keys that can be collected (Water, Air, Fire, Earth) but I am not sure what they are for. I assume that maybe they are needed to get into the four chambers with the bonuses, but again, I am not sure.

C
User avatar
tr0ll
Posts: 551
Joined: June 11th, 2006, 8:13 pm
Location: canada

Re: The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Post by tr0ll »

Just a note that Wesnoth 1.12 is available on Trusty-backports (Ubuntu 14.04 LTS) and on Xenial (Ubuntu 16.04 LTS), in case you wanted to port the campaigns.
details: https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=wesnoth
User avatar
Sadaharu
Posts: 336
Joined: December 13th, 2017, 11:39 pm

Re: The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Post by Sadaharu »

So I've just been playing a bit and found out ‘The prisoner’ can be won in 4 turns: move the Paladin Aelfgwyn to take cities, recall a silver mage (who doesn't get a silver mage when given the chance?), move silver mage. In fact I lose 20% of my starting gold as punishment, but in any event any mage (the two Shaman lines, human Mages and their upgrades as well) can open any door. I'll play the campaign through, but I just feel I've cheated myself out of a bashfest/XP.
Konrad2
Forum Moderator
Posts: 3333
Joined: November 24th, 2010, 6:30 pm

Re: The Elf, the Dwarf and the Mage

Post by Konrad2 »

S1
Alatos doesn't have a silver crown, even though he's not allowed to die.

S2
The 'barriers' on 12,4 and 37,6 are not removed when they are supposed to be removed.

Replays
Spoiler:
Post Reply