Re: [Wesnoth-dev] response to Aiming for 1.0

[Asa Swain]

Nils makes some good points in this post. I wanted to
respond to a few.

Campaigns: I agree that unless it gets completed
somehow, in it's current form "The Dark Hordes" is the
weakest campaign currently included. It's a shame
because it's one of the only campaigns I know of that
feature the Undead. But in it's unfinished form, I
don't think it's appropriate for 1.0. Assuming that
all campaigns in 1.0 should be completed. 

I'm not sure about Son of the Black Eye. Like the dark
hordes, it's one of the only campaigns featuring the
orcs/northeners, so I think it is useful becuase it
allows players to play as the orcs.  I haven't played
it in a long time, so i don't know if certain
scenarios are broken, but I don't mind it being just
chapter 1 of an unfinished longer storyline.

There is a balance in the current campaigns, HttT
allows you to play as rebels/elves, TDH allows you to
play undead, EI and TRoW allows you to play as
Loyalists and SoTBE allows you to play as Orcs. If we
judge the campaigns on how balanced they are, not
based on if they are complete, then TDH and SoTBE are
very useful, because all together thse 5 cvampaigns
let players play most of the main races/factions in
the game. It's useful to be able to play undead and
orcs in single player campaigns before trying our
these factions in multiplayer.

If there are campaigns featuring undead or orcs that
are better quality than the current ones then I could
see switching them out. But while I agree that some of
the current campaigns are rather lacking in
completeness, I can also see why racially it helps to
have them.

As for the perfect tutorial campaign, the obvious
choice is "The South guard", it's a complete easy
difficulty campaign with an engaging storyline. 

Units: let's wait to decide about the high elves until
Jetryl actually finished them. Right now I think they
would make fine units for a campaign. Unless the
resulting campaign became a core campaign I see little
reason why the units would be included in the mainline
build. Balancing a race for a special campaign is a
lot easier than trying to balance it in the
multiplayer arena. So unless they became very popular
I think it's unlikely we would add them to the
multiplayer faction list. But we can cross that bridge
when we get to it. 

Speaking of multiplayer factions and units, I'd still
like to see the outlaws removed from the dwarves
factions and perhaps 1 or 2 new drawf units be added.
But that certainly isn't a necessity to finish the
game. 

I guess that's all for now.

-Asa


--- Nils Kneuper <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hi everyone!
> In my last mail I wrote some stuff that seems rather
> important to me,
> so I do not want to have it lost in a "dead-thread".
> Some of the
> points also justify a thread for their own. This one
> will be quite
> long, so sorry for this.
> I Think we should really head for 1.0. The game
> looks very complete to
> me, though there are some points I want to menition
> in this mail, that
> could need some work:
> 
> 1) CAMPAIGNS:
> Some of the campaigns do not fit into mainline at
> the moment.
> Either we should work on them, or we should kick
> them out. I am
> speaking of SotBE and TdH. These are incomplete and
> do not really fit
> to the rest.
> We should also consider getting them completely out
> of the game and
> maybe getting one or two good and complete user
> campaigns into it
> instead.
> Also it would be nice if at least one campaign was
> designed for
> beginners that do not have much experience in
> playing TBS games. They
> maybe only played the tutorial and find httt very
> hard afterwards. At
> least one campaign should be winnable by an
> unexpierienced user even
> on medium.
> 
> 2) UNITS:
> Is it really needed to get in more units? The units
> in 0.9.1 were
> looking quite complete. Should we really add more
> units to the game?
> There are already very many units. This makes it
> hard for beginners
> and even harder to balance.
> We should leave the units (and their attacks) like
> they were. We
> should only change it, when balancing (next point)
> needs it.
> I really like the idea of having more drakes
> personally, but I do not
> think it is good for the game. This will make our
> progress into the
> direction of 1.0 by far harder. I do think they
> should stay like they
> are now.
> I also do strongly speak against adding the high
> elves. This will
> destroy several stuff again. Changing Kalenz to have
> a "cold" attack,
> makes httt somehow imba, because you have to fight
> undead in some
> missions in which Kalenz already joind you. And cold
> is really not
> good against undead. Maybe httt has completele be
> revised now. Because
> of this I speak for reverting the changes to Kalenz.
> The high-elves may be added as
> "unofficial-unit-pack". I do not think
> we do really need them for mainline, though they are
> a nice idea after
> all. But not for mainline ATM.
> 
> 3) BALANCING:
> This one is the hardest points. All the unit
> additions and changes of
> the last days, like changing the saurian, are not
> best for the game I
> think. The drakes were playable because of this unit
> that easyly died
> if you are not carefull enough. Witout a magic
> attack, they will only
> be like the rest. The drakes will be weak and not
> really usable at
> all.
> I think we should have the units features like in
> 0.9.1. Some changes
> for balancing are needed, yes. But I think
> multiplayermode in 0.9.1
> was not too bad. Some tweaking to resistances and
> defnces or costs,
> yes. But NO big changes like complete new skills to
> some units (cf
> Tribalist and Sky Drake).
> For these balancing issues we should listen to the
> experienced
> MP-Players a lot more. If we get MP really balanced,
> single player
> will be rather balanced, too. The last balancing on
> singleplayer can
> be done by (very little) adjustments at the design
> of some maps. We
> got some good players, who know the best tactics,
> that are even willing
> to help us, why not listen to them?
> 
> 4) MORE EXTRA FEATURES:
> Are there more extra features for 1.0 needed? The
> game looks somehow
> feature complete to me. There may be stuff that
> could be adjusted and
> improved (modularisation) but these things could
> also break a lot. I
> do speak in favour of letting the game like it is
> now, concentrate
> (mainly) on fixing bugs and get it really stable so
> that 1.0 can be
> realsed. If you know any knew features that really
> do need to make it
> in, feel free to mail.
> 
> 5) TRANSLATIONS:
> That one is the point that concerns me most
> personally. We do have to
> make a decission when we should add a translation to
> 1.0. Should there
> only be complete translations, or also the ones just
> started? I would
> like it, if we included the complete ones, and make
> it optional to
> install others when they are completed. It could
> work with a check for
> the existance of the dir of the corresponding
> language.
> I do not think it would be good to have a
> translation in the game
> where only 10% are translated. What do you think of
> this?
> 
> 6) LEADING THE GAME TO 1.0:
> I do really think we do need someone that leads the
> game to 1.0 it has
> to be done with a rather hard hand. The person doing
> it should be
> familiar with the complete game and the code. So I
> am not able to do
> this (puhhhh). I would really like it if Dave could
> continue until 1.0
> is out and hand it over afterwards?
> I think we could really complete Wesnoth to be in
> the state of
> releasing 1.0 very soon. It should be possible to do
> this in the term
> of this year. Sometime between autumn and christmas
> it could be done,
> so please Dave, stay this long and lead us.
> 
> So these are the main points I wanted to write
> about. As I already
> said, it was quite much, but I think it had to be
> written. Please
> comment on this and help to release 1.0 soon.
> Cheers,
> Nils Kneuper aka Ivanovic
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Wesnoth-dev mailing list
> address@hidden
> http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/wesnoth-dev
> 


                
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