[interface]Order of Campaigns

[TheScribe]

I've noticed that the addon campaigns and the mainline ones are mingled together. I'm not saying that there should be a seperate list for addons, but rather that I think the mainline campaigns should stay on the top of the list, with the addons below them.

Any thoughts?

[doofus-01]

If add-ons and mainline campaigns are getting mingled, it is because the add-on authors are not using the correct ranking. Let those authors know they need to assign a rank larger than 400. See http://wiki.wesnoth.org/CampaignWML

rank: a number that determines the order of campaigns in the campaign selection menu. Lower rank campaigns appear earlier, with unranked campaigns at the end. Currently the mainline campaigns use multiples of 10 from 0 to 399, with 0-99 for Novice campaigns, 100-199 for Intermediate campaigns, and 200-399 for Expert campaigns; if you specify this, it should not be less than 400. (Note: This replaces an older convention that topped out at 50.)

[TheScribe]

Ah. I'll let them know. Thanks.

[Lord-Knightmare]

If add-ons and mainline campaigns are getting mingled, it is because the add-on authors are not using the correct ranking. Let those authors know they need to assign a rank larger than 400. See http://wiki.wesnoth.org/CampaignWML

rank: a number that determines the order of campaigns in the campaign selection menu. Lower rank campaigns appear earlier, with unranked campaigns at the end. Currently the mainline campaigns use multiples of 10 from 0 to 399, with 0-99 for Novice campaigns, 100-199 for Intermediate campaigns, and 200-399 for Expert campaigns; if you specify this, it should not be less than 400. (Note: This replaces an older convention that topped out at 50.)

I don't believe that the mainline campaigns are arranged from 0 to 399, as the Under the Burning Suns (the last of the mainline campaigns) has the rank 250. So, shouldn't someone update the wiki and make the necessary edits? Like: 251-999 for UMC and 0-250 for mainline?

[JaMiT]

I don't believe that the mainline campaigns are arranged from 0 to 399, as the Under the Burning Suns (the last of the mainline campaigns) has the rank 250.

Is 250 not in the range 0 to 399?

So, shouldn't someone update the wiki and make the necessary edits? Like: 251-999 for UMC and 0-250 for mainline?

No. That would eliminate the space reserved for future mainline campaigns (should there be any).

Also, I see no obvious reason to limit UMC to 999. Why would you impose that limit?

[Lord-Knightmare]

Is 250 not in the range 0 to 399?

Yes, it is, but I was suggesting to make it the maximum value...

No. That would eliminate the space reserved for future mainline campaigns (should there be any).

You mean Wings of Victory? I thought its development was suspended as it has been inactive over 7 months or so...
Even if there are more mainline campaigns, so shouldn't they fall between HttT and UtBS (I'm typing this statement on the assumption that future mainline campaigns might not be based after the Fall), still making UtBS the last in the list...

Also, I see no obvious reason to limit UMC to 999. Why would you impose that limit?

Sorry, I thought the rank consisted only of 3 digits and 999 is the maximum 3 digit value...

[UnwiseOwl]

The Imperial Era Campaigns are all in the order of 10000, which is convenient, as it means that they all appear together and no-one else's campaigns are likely to get mixed up with them.

[JaMiT]

Is 250 not in the range 0 to 399?

Yes, it is, but I was suggesting to make it the maximum value...

What benefit would come from lowering the maximum ranking reserved for mainline campaigns?

No. That would eliminate the space reserved for future mainline campaigns (should there be any).

You mean Wings of Victory?

Not specifically. I mean any campaign that might be mainlined before Battle for Wesnoth falls into an unmaintained state (so think potentially hundreds of years from now). Not just the space reserved for current plans, but the space reserved for future developments.

Even if there are more mainline campaigns, so shouldn't they fall between HttT and UtBS (I'm typing this statement on the assumption that future mainline campaigns might not be based after the Fall), still making UtBS the last in the list...

Not necessarily. First of all, why make that assumption? Is there any reason to impose such a limitation on the imagination of campaign creators? Second of all, take a look at the sizes of the subranges. There is twice as much space allocated for expert campaigns as for each of the other subranges. That tells me that the reserved range possibly could be more accurately described as: "0-99 for novice campaigns, 100-199 for intermediate campaigns, and 200-299 for expert campaigns, with 300-399 reserved in case it is decided to add another difficulty tier to the mainline campaigns." (Other uses for the 300-399 range are possible.) So not only are extra values reserved for future campaigns, but there is also an extra range reserved for a future difficulty tier. And if another tier is added and UtBS is not moved to the 300-399 range, then there would be mainline campaigns listed after UtBS -- on the basis of difficulty, not timeline.

Sorry, I thought the rank consisted only of 3 digits and [...]

Where did you get this idea? (Is it implied somewhere? Inaccurate documentation can be corrected.) As a rule of thumb, if a computer program does not specify a limit for numeric values, it is generally safe to assume they can go up to at least 32,767. (Well, some small values might be capped at 255, but there are no natural breakpoints between 255 and 32,767.) Not that there is a reason to memorize that magic number. Rather, the point is that if there is no upper limit stated, it would be better to ask what the upper limit is instead of assuming such a low limit.

Since this was brought up, let me check what the upper limit is.... It looks like ranks can go up to 2,147,483,647, but here is an interesting wrinkle. Unranked campaigns are not necessarily listed last; their rank defaults to 1000. Maybe that is related to the assumption that ranks consisted of only 3 digits?

____

The Imperial Era Campaigns are all in the order of 10000, which is convenient, as it means that they all appear together and no-one else's campaigns are likely to get mixed up with them.

Grouping related campaigns is the main reason I can think of for sorting (non-mainline) campaigns by rank instead of alphabetically (particularly since there are no guidelines for how to rank non-mainline campaigns).

[Chris NS]

Since the list of mainline campaigns is getting long now, I wonder if we need something more sophisticated than a single order parameter. For a start, would it make sense to have a tabbed window: one for default campaigns, and the other for add-on campaigns.

Then there's the layout of the selecton screen. At the moment, in order to find out which campaigns are the novice ones you have to click through each campaign individually and see which ones say novice. Could we lay out the screen so there's a "novice" headser over the novice campaigns, and "intermeduate" header over the intermediates campaigns and "expert" over the expert campaigns?

Finally, there might be scope for grouping by eras, although how you'd coordinate that wioth grouping by difficulty I'm not sure. So far, there's been on official standing on era-based campaigns because they exclusively reside as add-ons, but we might want to start thinking about this is any other campaigns from the UtBS world appear, which is almost an era in its own right.

Just thinking out loud. The add-ons screen is getting a long-overdue overhaul, so now might be a good time to consider doing something similar for the campaign selection screen before it gets any busier.

[GunChleoc]

Maybe some drop-down fields you can use to filter could do the trick, similar to what's done in multiplayer to show active games?

[Lord-Knightmare]

Since the list of mainline campaigns is getting long now, I wonder if we need something more sophisticated than a single order parameter. For a start, would it make sense to have a tabbed window: one for default campaigns, and the other for add-on campaigns.

Then there's the layout of the selecton screen. At the moment, in order to find out which campaigns are the novice ones you have to click through each campaign individually and see which ones say novice. Could we lay out the screen so there's a "novice" headser over the novice campaigns, and "intermeduate" header over the intermediates campaigns and "expert" over the expert campaigns?

Finally, there might be scope for grouping by eras, although how you'd coordinate that wioth grouping by difficulty I'm not sure. So far, there's been on official standing on era-based campaigns because they exclusively reside as add-ons, but we might want to start thinking about this is any other campaigns from the UtBS world appear, which is almost an era in its own right.

Just thinking out loud. The add-ons screen is getting a long-overdue overhaul, so now might be a good time to consider doing something similar for the campaign selection screen before it gets any busier.

I agree completely...

[JaMiT]

Since the list of mainline campaigns is getting long now, I wonder if we need something more sophisticated than a single order parameter. For a start, would it make sense to have a tabbed window: one for default campaigns, and the other for add-on campaigns.

For reference: GUI#Campaign_Dialog, dating back to February 2006 (so changes might take some time to come about)

Another reference: Fosdem2012#Campaign_Selection_UI, dating back to February of this year (so it seems to not be a dead issue, but I do not know the latest state of the discussions).

[UnwiseOwl]

Since this was brought up, let me check what the upper limit is.... It looks like ranks can go up to 2,147,483,647, but here is an interesting wrinkle. Unranked campaigns are not necessarily listed last; their rank defaults to 1000. Maybe that is related to the assumption that ranks consisted of only 3 digits?

/me goes to move all the IE campaigns to 2,147,480,000...

Nah.

[rmj]

Currently the mainline campaigns use multiples of 10 from 0 to 399, with 0-99 for Novice campaigns, 100-199 for Intermediate campaigns, and 200-399 for Expert campaigns;

I don't understand how this can work since just about every campaign has three (sometimes four) levels: easy, normal, hard.


And I would like to see consistency in the naming of levels. It seems there are five levels:

Novice/beginner--at this level you usually win even without using any strategy.

Easy/Intermediate--Use of just a few strategies

Normal/Intermediate/Expert--lot of strategy

Difficult/Challenging/Expert--all strategy, full knowledge of unit strengths and weaknesses

Nightmare--perfection and luck? I don't even attempt these.

[JaMiT]

Currently the mainline campaigns use multiples of 10 from 0 to 399, with 0-99 for Novice campaigns, 100-199 for Intermediate campaigns, and 200-399 for Expert campaigns;

I don't understand how this can work since just about every campaign has three (sometimes four) levels: easy, normal, hard.

You are confusing two separate concepts. Each campaign has three (or four or two) difficulties at which they can be played, but this is part of / within the campaign. The ranking of mainline campaigns into "novice", "intermediate", and "expert" is a ranking of the campaigns as a whole. For example, while you do get a choice of difficulties when playing An Orcish Incursion, the campaign as a whole is much easier than, say, Under the Burning Suns.

Not sure I can explain it better at the moment. The ranking of campaigns is to some extent "averaged" over the available difficulty settings within the campaign.