Campaign dialog log

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Ravana
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by Ravana »

(This topic was originally created by spambot, but I decided it might be useful to resurrect anyways)
Molean wrote: April 21st, 2010, 8:04 pm Sometimes you accidentally click past dialog that is triggered by moving your units to locations (I often do it) As far as I know, the only way to see what you missed is to reload the turn and try to be more careful.

It would be nice if there was a log of campaign dialog you could go into and just see what has been said. Not only for accidentally clicking past missed dialog, but if you have forgotten what has been said awhile back too.

Perhaps the log could also include the text before the map begins? Perhaps the log could show previous maps too?(Only maps strung together into a campaign) Perhaps the log could be part of the save, so that if you revert to a previous save, the log wouldn't potentially become a mess?
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Ravana
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by Ravana »

Much of this could be implemented by extending wesnoth.wml_actions.message. I have considered doing so, but havent so far.
Landiss
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by Landiss »

Oh, that would be really nice to have. I cannot count the times I have missed something due to accidently clicking mouse.
Ceesem
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by Ceesem »

Since I've recently ran into an issue of possibly skipping important message (details here) I'd like to resurrect this idea. I would also like to bring back the idea from the 2010 thread on the same topic:
zookeeper wrote: April 21st, 2010, 8:46 pm I've in the past suggested that the first message of any event should by default be impossible to dismiss during the first half a second or less, but it didn't really catch on.
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josteph
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by josteph »

Sounds like a good idea. Maybe we just make [message]s append themselves to the chat log dialog (Alt+C)? (but without showing on the top-left corner of the screen; that would be redundant...)

I'm sure there are complications I haven't thought of (side_for and text_input, for example), but is this a good direction?
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by Ravana »

I think speaker portrait might be important.
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josteph
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by josteph »

Why? If I look at, say, https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/blob ... 1254-L1267 (from AToTB), I can follow the dialog well even though it only gives the speaker's id, not their portrait.
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by Tad_Carlucci »

Please. Some sort of roll-back to read the messages. Pictures optional. Heck, I don't even care WHO said it, I just want to read it again,
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

josteph wrote: September 16th, 2019, 7:43 pm Why? If I look at, say, https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/blob ... 1254-L1267 (from AToTB), I can follow the dialog well even though it only gives the speaker's id, not their portrait.
That's because we all know who those characters are. There's some cases where the speaker is just whichever of your units moves to a specific hex, or even just whichever unit the game flags as an 'advisor' for dialogue. In those cases, having just the name could be confusing.
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by josteph »

Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: September 17th, 2019, 3:25 pm That's because we all know who those characters are. There's some cases where the speaker is just whichever of your units moves to a specific hex, or even just whichever unit the game flags as an 'advisor' for dialogue. In those cases, having just the name could be confusing.
Well, yes... but on the other hand, the chat log would only show the player lines that had already been spoken before. The player would probably remember the circumstances when they were first spoken (e.g., a moveto event).

Also, the speaker's name will be side colored.

I do suppose there is room for improvement, though. Can you suggest an alternative? For example, display more info than just the unit's name if the speaker wasn't selected by its id? What info?
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lhybrideur
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by lhybrideur »

maybe simply display name instead of id. It will be easier to find a unit by name than by id while playing.
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josteph
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by josteph »

Of course it will display name rather than id.
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

josteph wrote: September 17th, 2019, 4:19 pm
Tom_Of_Wesnoth wrote: September 17th, 2019, 3:25 pm That's because we all know who those characters are. There's some cases where the speaker is just whichever of your units moves to a specific hex, or even just whichever unit the game flags as an 'advisor' for dialogue. In those cases, having just the name could be confusing.
Well, yes... but on the other hand, the chat log would only show the player lines that had already been spoken before. The player would probably remember the circumstances when they were first spoken (e.g., a moveto event).

Also, the speaker's name will be side colored.

I do suppose there is room for improvement, though. Can you suggest an alternative? For example, display more info than just the unit's name if the speaker wasn't selected by its id? What info?
Showing the unit type might help? Or possibly scrolling the screen to centre on that unit, if it is still alive? I'm not sure, I can't really think of a convincing way to handle it.
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by doofus-01 »

Depending on how this is displayed, the unit sprite could be a good compromise between the portrait and some more compact text-only field. Every unit, even UMC, should have a sprite, except the case of the narrator with a specified image. Maybe there could be a new [message] key for the log's image field that falls back to the unit sprite or a narrator default if absent.

Image graphics might also be easier to read at a glance.
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lhybrideur
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Re: Campaign dialog log

Post by lhybrideur »

If by unit sprite you mean what I think you mean, you do realize there won't be any way to distinguish, for example, two different grunts.
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