[mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

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Pentarctagon
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

Post by Pentarctagon »

Sapient wrote:So, is this policy no longer in effect?
viewtopic.php?p=584614#p584614
I don't think this really falls into that policy, since the idea isn't to remove or completely change the Khalifate. Rather, the idea is to keep the underlying theme of the faction, while making changes so it better fits into Wesnoth.

Also, to the best of my knowledge, the Khalifate are all but unmaintained at this point despite being in mainline, so unless the faction's creator comes back and says that they'd rather the faction be removed than any changes made to it, I can't really think of a reason not to be trying to improve them if there are people willing to do so.

And while I can't speak for shadowm or the dev team on this, personally I do think the sorts of changes being proposed here are long overdue.
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

Post by Aldarisvet »

Sapient wrote:So, is this policy no longer in effect?
viewtopic.php?p=584614#p584614

If not, here is a reminder of some of the choices that were proposed earlier. I would consider most of these better than Southerners or Sand people. ;)

a) Maybe too realistic:
- Sultanate
- Emirate
- Saracens
- something that sounds like Sassanid (e.g. Wassanid)

b) More in the fantasy vein:
- Sons of Zamarkand
- Sons of Fatima
- Osmanlis
- Rashidun / (e.g. Rashidi Fighter,Etc.)
- Xalıdı (already has a fork)
- ??? something that evokes Hamzanama
As I got the feeling of many people (and I have the same opinion), they wanted to avoid connotations of any faction with real nation or language in this fantasy game named Wesnoth. Orcs, elves, ogres and so on are fantasy races. This southern nation should be no more than a race of fantasy southern/desert people with the eastern aroma. So 'Dune people' is really a good neutral name for this.
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

Post by Xalzar »

Sapient wrote: a) Maybe too realistic:
- Sultanate
- Emirate
- Saracens
- something that sounds like Sassanid (e.g. Wassanid)

b) More in the fantasy vein:
- Sons of Zamarkand
- Sons of Fatima
- Osmanlis
- Rashidun / (e.g. Rashidi Fighter,Etc.)
- Xalıdı (already has a fork)
- ??? something that evokes Hamzanama
:hmm:
Aldarisvet wrote: As I got the feeling of many people (and I have the same opinion), they wanted to avoid connotations of any faction with real nation or language in this fantasy game named Wesnoth. Orcs, elves, ogres and so on are fantasy races. This southern nation should be no more than a race of fantasy southern/desert people with the eastern aroma. So 'Dune people' is really a good neutral name for this.
I wholly agree.
[sarcasm] Otherwise, we should consider changing the name of the Wesnoth Kingdom to Holy Roman Empire (if we want realism) or Camelot (if we want adherence to our source of inspiration) at this point. [/sarcasm]
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

Post by Kwandulin »

On a second thought, we'd need to think about whether having a ruling system included in the name of the faction is a good idea. "Dune Kingdom" implies that the southerners are organized in a kingdom. At least in OoA, the desert people are ruled over by three grand city states, similar to the ancient greeks; and "kingdom" might not be the best fitting name. OoA is not in mainline, so we of course do not have to adhere to it. That said, I still think that having a faction that is not so centralized as a kingdom, might add some further flavour to the cooking pot.

zookeeper made a map for it some time ago:
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate — or not?

Post by Can-ned_Food »

Pentarctagon has more say in this matter than I, but so far as concerns my posts in this thread: I am discussing my own fork of the faction i.e. TXE and not the so–called mainline. The www.wesnoth.org devs do what they want; I am grateful for their work, but if I think things should be done differently then I am more likely to fork and evaluate the merits of my version independently — if someone wants to adopt it to their branch later, I'll accomodate that, too.
Nothing wrong with a group of people closing off a branch of a project to maintain certain consistent design styles or a theme. Some devs certainly are more polite about it than others, but that's neither here nor there, as the saying goes. We are all susceptible to power trips; the only difference between a monk and an egotistic celebrity is the humility of an honest respect for oneself and others.

But, I digress.
If the forum managers would rather that I migrate all pertinent discussion over to my The Xalıdı Expansion thread, then please confirm.

Personally, I really think the aforecited policy was simply an attempt to shut down all the clamor. It seems that it has served that purpose; now, the people here seem a lot more peaceful and considerate.
There probably remains a bit of reticence as to exactly what the religion, if any, the faction has and how that relates to their culture. Me, personally, I think that a monotheistic and anti–idolatrous culture would be an interesting contrast to the others. I believe Mintleaf had the right idea: let's limit our design influences to anything pre–1200s C.E. or A.D. Ideally, pre–Crusades and post–Arabian Nights — because there's already at least one such era and set of campaigns available.

As for my fork renaming the faction — well, I didn't actually do much of that. So far as I could see, it was already renamed in backstory prior to my changes: see to TXE's _manifest.cfg; I simply respelled it and changed the declension.

Pentarctagon, I like your idea about using Dune Something for the race and Xalıdı as the dominant faction. I think that would also help with Kwandulin's note.
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

Post by GunChleoc »

Kwandulin wrote:On a second thought, we'd need to think about whether having a ruling system included in the name of the faction is a good idea. "Dune Kingdom" implies that the southerners are organized in a kingdom. At least in OoA, the desert people are ruled over by three grand city states, similar to the ancient greeks; and "kingdom" might not be the best fitting name. OoA is not in mainline, so we of course do not have to adhere to it. That said, I still think that having a faction that is not so centralized as a kingdom, might add some further flavour to the cooking pot.
How about something like "children" or "people" instead of "kingdom"?
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate — or not?

Post by Pentarctagon »

Can-ned_Food wrote:Pentarctagon has more say in this matter than I, but so far as concerns my posts in this thread: I am discussing my own fork of the faction i.e. TXE and not the so–called mainline. The www.wesnoth.org devs do what they want; I am grateful for their work, but if I think things should be done differently then I am more likely to fork and evaluate the merits of my version independently — if someone wants to adopt it to their branch later, I'll accomodate that, too.
Nothing wrong with a group of people closing off a branch of a project to maintain certain consistent design styles or a theme. Some devs certainly are more polite about it than others, but that's neither here nor there, as the saying goes. We are all susceptible to power trips; the only difference between a monk and an egotistic celebrity is the humility of an honest respect for oneself and others.

But, I digress.
If the forum managers would rather that I migrate all pertinent discussion over to my The Xalıdı Expansion thread, then please confirm.
If you have ideas you'd like to contribute to the thread, then by all means do so :)

Just keep in mind that this thread is about renaming the Khalifate for mainline. Discussion specifically about your fork should definitely be in its own thread.
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

Post by Can-ned_Food »

Once again I was idiotically misleading. I meant to say that TXE will be implementing any changes which I discuss here, regardless of whether they make any headway into the mainline. :doh: I also forgot to mention that I was asking whether to migrate the discussion on the possibility that this thread would be locked. :doh:
Either way, I will be updating TXE's thread when I've completed those changes.

If i post it here, then i will of course make sure that it keeps pertinence to the topic.
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

Post by Iris »

I would like to clarify that at the time when there used to be a “policy”, I was both an active developer and the Release Manager. I am neither of those things anymore and it doesn’t seem like the current team fully understands the concept of policies, be it with regards to mainline content or literally anything else of relevance to Wesnoth’s development.
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

Post by Turuk »

Personally, I really think the aforecited policy was simply an attempt to shut down all the clamor. It seems that it has served that purpose; now, the people here seem a lot more peaceful and considerate.
This is the crux of the issue, as the previous discussion devolved into multiple tangents that may have been relationally relevant but did not actually further the development of the faction.

You may be talking specifically to your branch, but as the point was raised, thee is currently not an active maintainer of the Khalifate and there are individuals involved in this discussion who can assist in making those changes if some of the ideas prove to have merit.

In agreement with shadowm, a number of things have changed about the nature of the community and development processes since the original discussion as well, so revisiting the topic in a rational manner with the focus of improvement and not philosophical debate would work well.
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

Post by Aldarisvet »

Xalzar wrote: [sarcasm] Otherwise, we should consider changing the name of the Wesnoth Kingdom to Holy Roman Empire (if we want realism) or Camelot (if we want adherence to our source of inspiration) at this point. [/sarcasm]
Humans from Wesnoth in no way are medieval Europeans. They are classical fantasy humans from fantasy books and computer games, thats all. Medieval Europeans never had mages in their armies.
At the same time Dwarves are not Vikings - they are fantasy race with elements of Vikings culture.
We can see some elements of Greek/Roman culture with Mermens but Mermens are not Greeks for sure.
Interbreeding is forbidden in Wesnoth so I think that Dune people should not even be humans. Elves looks like humans but they are not humans. Another example, there is a Highmans race in Age of Wonders - they look like humans but they are not humans. I think that Dune people could be something like these Highmans in part. So if you get away from the strict link with arabian culture that prevails under Khalifate faction for now (and stops development of this faction in fact), you can invent something really original (still with great influence of eastern culture of course). Because for now Khalifate do not look like a fantasy faction and this is quite discouraging. There is no background for Khalifate for now, yes? Khalifate units have clearly arabian sprites - thats ok, but it is possible to create a background for them based on mix of cultures, for example to put some things from japan culture or some absolutely original ideas (or even take something from Freemen that are from Sci-Fiction 'Dune' book lol - see here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremen). This is a work for writers of course.
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

Post by Turuk »

If they are not truly or fully human as one might consider them, what sort of underlying background to complement the elements that they currently clearly pull from a desert culture influence? A mystical component, various faint levels of djinn blood in their veins? A closer biological relationship with the sand that is part of their make-up?
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

Post by Xalzar »

Aldarisvet wrote: Humans from Wesnoth in no way are medieval Europeans...etc.
I see I've written my post in a way which could have brought a little misunderstanding. My bad, now I see how I should have organized my post.
The "sarcasm" line was not referred to what you said, it was referring to the example of names proposed by Sapient.

I was agreeing with you, and I also agree on what you said about Dwarves and Vikings, etc. (I even wanted to write myself that in my post, but then I preferred not)
Aldarisvet wrote: Interbreeding is forbidden in Wesnoth so I think that Dune people should not even be humans.
As I understood there was a work in progress about the Khalifate background which stated that they are humans from the Old Continent which got separated from the Islefolk/Wesfolk people (which migrated to the Green Isle and then to the Great Continent), who eventually colonized/migrated too to the Great Continent via a southern straits between the continents (but it could have occured by other means) and then gradually extended their territories northwards towards Wesnoth.
So they could be just a human culture which has been split from the known one for centuries, which could explain the differences.
I think is fairly understandable that the same race can have even extermely different cultures, if that's explained. And humans typically are the most prone to be fragmented in different cultures even in fantasy fictions anyway.
Aldarisvet wrote: Khalifate units have clearly arabian sprites - thats ok, but it is possible to create a background for them based on mix of cultures, for example to put some things from japan culture or some absolutely original ideas.
I think that's the way the faction is shaping and will shape too. I don't know about Japan (we shall see), but surely Middle-Eastern and Central Asian influences will be hinted in unit names or in some aspect of the cultural background.
Turuk wrote:If they are not truly or fully human as one might consider them, what sort of underlying background to complement the elements that they currently clearly pull from a desert culture influence? A mystical component, various faint levels of djinn blood in their veins? A closer biological relationship with the sand that is part of their make-up?
Nice ideas if we want to give something "special" to the background of the faction.

My personal preference though is to have them be just a different culture of humans, and use new description and names to give them a new fantasy feel which incorporates hints from known cultures of the world and hints of a more fantastical settings.
An example of the latter is to have some lines or something which could give an insight on the relationship between the Dune people and some creatures of the desert (like obvious djinns, or dust evils, phoenixes - even if they are not included in the faction or not even in the game) or even known major factions the always-forgotten-drakes or others like saurians or nagas.
Some mystery in their background I think would be nice, no need to explain everything of course.

I'll step aside for now, I think I've said already enough and I don't want to derail the topic too much (the background really helps with unit names though, so I think it's necessary to think about it before long).
More in-topic, I think the term "Cataphract" would be really nice to have for one of the highest-level heavy cavalry units. It certainly fits of of the themes of the faction (Parthian-Sassanid).
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

Pentarctagon wrote:...I do think the sorts of changes being proposed here are long overdue.
I agree with this, these are needed changes.

It seems there are four changes that are mostly related being discussed here.
1. Faction name
2. Race name
3. Unit names
4. Unit name prefix

Faction name doesn't have to be identical to race name, though it could be. (ie, Loyalists / Drakes are examples on either side)

Perspectives to consider for coming up with faction/race names would be how Wesnothians would refer to them (ie: Southerners, Southern Kingdoms, Desert Folk) or how they would refer to themselves in-universe (ie: could be a made-up word like the Quenoth Elves in UtBS). Not sure about Xalıdı, when I look at it, I see a word I don't really know how to pronounce, whereas stuff like Saurians, Knalgans, Drakes, & Quenoth rolls off the tongue much easier.

As the location of this faction/race in the Wesnoth universe seems highly unlikely to change, Southerners could be used for the faction name independent of the race name/unit prefixes for the units.

As for the unit names, names that are much easier for players to grasp are preferable to what's currently in mainline. I don't think we should be unnecessarily creating friction for learning various aspects of the game.

I like the current unit name list by mintleaf, though there are some english ones listed at https://github.com/Can-nedFood/era_TheXalidiExpansion by Can-nedFood that might work.

As far as unit name prefix, I think Southern, Desert, Dune, or Sand can work well.
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Re: [mainline] Renaming Khalifate for Wesnoth-ian identity

Post by beetlenaut »

I don't know how to pronounce Xalıdı either, which is keeping me from being in favor of it. I suspect that the dotless i's are meant to be pronounced like in romance languages (basically a long E), but the X is totally ambiguous. If you replaced the X with an Z, H, Hh, Ks, or whatever the closest English equivalent is to what you wanted, I might be able to get on board.

On the other hand, Southerners sounds too generic and like we can't be bothered to be creative.
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