Battle for Wesnoth in the Digital Man Competition

[squamulus]

Hello!

The Digital Man competition has wrapped up its first round. We're now pitting the genre winners against one another for the final decision on which game has the best art, best story/world, most innovative gameplay, and is the overall best game.

If you want to come check out the winners and cast your final vote in the first Digital Man competition, click here.

Battle for Wesnoth swept its genre, so I thought you guys would be interested in the final voting round.

Thanks,
sqm

[artisticdude]

Thanks for sharing the link. Guess what I voted for?

Battle for Wesnoth swept its genre

It's pretty much a no-brainer... Wesnoth is among the top games in the FOSS world, and is certainly the best one in my opinion. Not only because of the unique and fun gameplay, but also because of the great graphics (few other FOSS games can claim to be anywhere near Wesnoth in that department... at least as far as 2d games are concerned).

[Zerovirus]

Gave the votes to Wesnoth. Well, all but Best World. That one I gave to Warzone 2100. Because, let's face it, Wesnoth's setting isn't all that original. Its gameplay and graphics kick major ass though, and overall it's obviously the best game (totally a scientific and empirical statement).

[PeterPorty]

All my votes go for the best one.

[Pentarctagon]

I'm sure they thank you for your honesty

[Gambit]

All my votes go for the best one.

Same.

But I've not played any of the others , so from my POV I was entirely honest.

[Frogger5]

Same here.

[johndh]

Gave the votes to Wesnoth. Well, all but Best World. That one I gave to Warzone 2100. Because, let's face it, Wesnoth's setting isn't all that original.

True, but it's much more developed, through art, campaigns, and lore, than any of the others (as far as I know). I voted for BfW for everything except innovative gameplay. I abstained from that one because I'd have to play all the others for that to be a fair vote.

[Zarel]

Honestly, neither Wesnoth nor Warzone have particularly good stories, and I say that as a Warzone developer. Wesnoth is really generic fantasy, and Warzone is really generic post-apocalyptic setting. Warzone does get points for being realistic and not having many generic sci-fi tropes, though, and beyond the necessary breaks from like fast building, it tends to be more realistic than similar games.

In terms of lore, Wesnoth has a bunch of supplemental material, but it's... not that good. Even the official campaigns: the last time I played them all, I either felt neutral towards or disliked the writing in most of them (SoF was really the only one that stood out as good writing).

Wesnoth art, on the other hand, is hella good for OSS.

[Zerovirus]

As I said once to Espreon: Even Fanfiction.net has better writers than us, and that is really sad.

Wesnoth's art is superb, of course, as is its music. Of the campaigns, the only ones I felt were notable at all were DID, UtBS, and SoF. Then again, I suppose my standard isn't as high as some peoples' might be. I personally feel that the problem is that Wesnoth didn't have a clear vision of its setting, like, for example, WH40K or any of the bestselling fantasy roleplay settings, before the game actually got popular and people started making campaigns. Thus, everyone who adds stuff on follow blindly in line and produce even more generic stuff, and the game gets mired into a tar pit of generic stuff.

At least that's how I see it.

Of course, I notice that you haven't said which you voted for, Zarel. Which one are you more loyal to? Or did you abstain from voting entirely?

[Dixie]

Since we're talking about Wesnoth's Setting:

I've recently looked at the bits of history witten in the wiki. While there is not all that much pre-wesnoth history (in comparison of all the post-wesnoth one), it generally sticks to the campaign, and although it is somewhat generic, it does the job ok. I think you can always manage tog et a spark from a generic setting through good, inventing stories with plot twists etc. Like, not HttT (which I didn't even complete, ever, btw). DiD and UtBS were about my favorites, too. But then, where it gets crunchy is the "after-wesnoth". The part on "The Fall" is logical, although... not all that interesting and original either. But man, the period after the fall, thunderrock age or something like that, that's got to be complete BS. I mean, gun powder? Modern Technology? Space Race?! I personnally totally boycott that age, I would rather have Wesnoth have no history after the Fall in be doomed to eternal oblivion than that. Personnal taste, in any event.

Another matter is that the community is so wide, everybody has different "good" ideas (the worth of which is of course variable and subject to personnal taste) whereas a creative, original, solid universe would need no more than a little team working together to put up something rock-solid. And then again, interpretation/people not having read pages of background setting (which is comprehensible, not counting the low awereness about the History wiki, since they themselves want to be creative) kicks in. I would know, since I've played on a couple Ultima Online RP shards, and participated in the conception of the background universe of a few.

So huh... All that to say, it ain't easy, especially not in the regard of a "massively" cooperative work-in-progress such as Wesnoth.

[Gambit]

Is warzone really fair though? Most of the work was done by Pumpkin.

[Zarel]

Of course, I notice that you haven't said which you voted for, Zarel. Which one are you more loyal to? Or did you abstain from voting entirely?

I voted for 1x Warzone and 3x Wesnoth.

[Zerovirus]

Since we're talking about Wesnoth's Setting:

I've recently looked at the bits of history witten in the wiki. While there is not all that much pre-wesnoth history (in comparison of all the post-wesnoth one), it generally sticks to the campaign, and although it is somewhat generic, it does the job ok. I think you can always manage tog et a spark from a generic setting through good, inventing stories with plot twists etc. Like, not HttT (which I didn't even complete, ever, btw). DiD and UtBS were about my favorites, too. But then, where it gets crunchy is the "after-wesnoth". The part on "The Fall" is logical, although... not all that interesting and original either. But man, the period after the fall, thunderrock age or something like that, that's got to be complete BS. I mean, gun powder? Modern Technology? Space Race?! I personnally totally boycott that age, I would rather have Wesnoth have no history after the Fall in be doomed to eternal oblivion than that. Personnal taste, in any event.

I once had a huge rant-discussion type thing with Espreon about everything after UtBS. UtBS is tolerable, but everything after that feels like a completely different franchise. Like someone tried to convert Star Wars to Star Trek by completely futzing the established canon or something.

Imagine if everything after "The Fall" were a separate game from Wesnoth. Would you even be able to tell any similarities between that game and the pre-fall weslore? I mean, IfTU and thunderstone and the post-fall stuff in general is cool, but IfTU in comparison to all other mainline campaigns practically uses pure homebrew units, and like Dixie said, thunderstone doesn't quite fit with Wesnoth overall.

[Araja]

Wesnoth deserved to win for so many different reasons. I don't think I need to explain them on these forums

On a side note, I'm happy that Alien Arena wiped out all rivals in the shooter category. Despite some serious balance problems with the weaponry (the beamgun beats everything else, doesn't require much skill to use, and is included in all levels) it's a fun game, especially for online play.