New era, "The Dark Century"

[Eolith]

I tried to make a post yesterday, but it would not send for some reason, and I could not do anything on the Wesnoth forum. Here it is.

Before you begin to read, I apologize for posting such a loooooooong thread.

Long? What do you mean long? I am more guilty of that than you are.

Well from what I can see I think that you need more expansion from the tree. you have 24 units but only 2 units have a branch and both are at level 2 (just verify I'm talking about the outcasts).

I am currently working on fixing that.

Also I think you could use some weapon variation. You currently have (if I remember correctly) around 11 weapons. Most being the commonly used sword, spear, bow, etc... I do like how you used "short sword" and "long knife". From what I read in the beginning of the thread (the concept may have changed so correct me if I'm wrong) the outcasts were supposed to live in the wilderness, far away from other civilized communities, save for orcs and some undead which aren't really communities. So I thought it would be more interesting and eye-catching if they had more unique weapons.

Well, the weapons are based more on the civilization each "portion" of the Outcast society originates in. For example, the Junior Ranger originates in the Elvish society, which is why they concentrate on archery, although they are also fairly good with the long knife in close combat. Also, the Hermit and Cavedweller are, in effect, rather similar on level 1- one of them having a slowing attack (or at least the Hermit is supposed to have a slowing attack. I need to work on the WML problem there.) and the other having spears. The Outcasts are geared more toward fighting Orcs than Undead, although the level 2 Sage and its line are extremely deadly vs. Undead. Oh, and what might you recommend for unique weapons? I am open to ideas. After all, more unit branches are needed.

Holy... 26 scenarios...? I barely managed to create a mini-campaign of 5 scenarios (4 playable, one for the storyline) and you already created such a masterpiece? Times have surely changed... Good work, my friend. As for the map design, tell me what is the work that has to be done precisely. I have plenty of unused maps that were originally designed for Sengoku (and that I discarded after). Can you send me your campaign, please?

I was bored. I had reached a point where I had nothing I could do except think up the story line. I will type up the basic story and send it with map ideas to you sometime during the next few days. I have not had a chance as yet to begin work on WML for the campaign, although I intend to do that soon. Pretty much the whole thing is still on paper. Also, I have maps for the first three scenarios, so I will try to send those, too. I may end up having to drop several scenarios, but I hope not. The story line still needs some work, and some scenarios need a better description, but the overall basic structure is currently in existence.

PS to Eolith: How about posting your current Dark Century version, hm?

I will, once I get the chance. I have not been able to do any work on it since Saturday because my schedule has flown to pieces. Starting in about a week or two, Wednesdays will be almost totally filled up for me, so don't be surprised if I miss a day or two every week. Also, not this weekend, but the next, I will not be able to post since I will be outdoors Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning with no access to a phone or computer.

As for the units' tree... well... neither me or Rhishisikk got the actual concepts of the units, so... we might gonna add it as well, sooner or later. It all depends on the will of the creator...

Do you mean the units' history, or what they upgrade to, or what? Once I know for sure what you are asking for, I will do my best to supply it.

What exactly do you have so far? To be honest I don't even know, do you have more then one faction? Are there stats and descriptions (if you want descriptions, they're not necessary)?

I have succeeded in making two operational factions in my test version and one partly operational; the Orcs can not recruit for some reason . The Undead also cannot use one of their units (I took it out of the faction to avoid crashing the game). Other than that, it is working just fine so far.

By the way, I noticed how the Blind Beggar is a little overpowered for Lv1 unit. I would downgrade his attack power from 15-2 to 12-2, in order to resemble the powerful mace of a Heavy Infantryman. The rest of the units is awesomely balanced, and I'm testing them with my own sprites, too.

I will see about fixing that. I increased the Blind Beggar's HP to 38 since 30 got one killed in two fights without doing much damage in return. Having a low HP really does make high attacks rather useless, since anyone brave enough to attack that unit has a good chance of either killing or neutralizing it.

P.S. @Mirion147. How much do you know about campaign WML? I may need some help with developing "From Darkness to Light," the first official DC-based campaign. Scenario testing would also be helpful- once I have some scenarios to test. I intend to post the basic story line on this forum sometime in the next few days.

P.S. @dontano:

Considering that I'm the only one who's making the Art for now

Sorry. If I had a good program for making unit sprites, then I would have used it long ago. Since I don't, I might as well put my effort somewhere else. Also, please don't be offended by my somewhat blunt remark. I could not think of any other way to put it, especially since I have been rather brain dead for most of the day.

[Mirion147]

Well the faction that I'm currently working on with Mica we have some units equipped with a ring blade (which might be called a chakram? I'm not sure) also claws and a glaive (and I'm not sure if a morning star is a unique weapon). Also I've always wanted to see a double sided blade. Maybe a whip (or a cat o' nine tails or whatever it's called) or a mattock (which is used for mining but can be converted into a weapon).

To be honest, I don't know ANYTHING about campaign WML . Sorry. And I've never tested a scenario before. It could be fun though .

[dontano]

To be honest, I don't know ANYTHING about campaign WML . Sorry. And I've never tested a scenario before. It could be fun though .

More than funny, it's a bit time consuming and requires a lot of testing. Trust me.

Most of the fixes that Eolith mentioned are now in the 1.1c version, posted yesterday. I forgot to increase the Blind Beggar's HP to 38, oh well... Other changes have been added and listed.
I also forgot to mention the WML fixes on some SPECIAL_WEAPON macros: {MARKSMAN} instead of {MARKMAN}.
By the way, we should put a sort of "changelog" text file, that lists all the fixes that we've done so far, by version.
Example: v1.0 - blah, blah, blah; v1.1 - blah, blah; v.1.1b - etc...

I will, once I get the chance. I have not been able to do any work on it since Saturday because my schedule has flown to pieces. Starting in about a week or two, Wednesdays will be almost totally filled up for me, so don't be surprised if I miss a day or two every week. Also, not this weekend, but the next, I will not be able to post since I will be outdoors Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning with no access to a phone or computer.

Eolith, you're free to post your files whenever you want. As you can see, the work is doing good right now, and I'm not the kind of guy that gives pressure to others. Do what you want. I'm too going to put all the fixes you're going to mention, in order to have parallel versions of the same era.

Well, the weapons are based more on the civilization each "portion" of the Outcast society originates in. For example, the Junior Ranger originates in the Elvish society, which is why they concentrate on archery, although they are also fairly good with the long knife in close combat. Also, the Hermit and Cavedweller are, in effect, rather similar on level 1- one of them having a slowing attack (or at least the Hermit is supposed to have a slowing attack. I need to work on the WML problem there.) and the other having spears. The Outcasts are geared more toward fighting Orcs than Undead, although the level 2 Sage and its line are extremely deadly vs. Undead. Oh, and what might you recommend for unique weapons? I am open to ideas. After all, more unit branches are needed.

Adding more units' branches it's fine, but I guess we can do that only after we finish the Art. It's for a matter of versions. I renamed almost all the weapons, though.

Do you mean the units' history, or what they upgrade to, or what? Once I know for sure what you are asking for, I will do my best to supply it.

No, never mind. I just forgot that we got a doc folder for the units' tree.

Sorry. If I had a good program for making unit sprites, then I would have used it long ago. Since I don't, I might as well put my effort somewhere else. Also, please don't be offended by my somewhat blunt remark. I could not think of any other way to put it, especially since I have been rather brain dead for most of the day.

Nah, I can imagine the situation. I'm having fun, while doing it, though!

[Eolith]

Chakram. Hmm, we may be able to use that. As for glaive, I use the picture for that as one of the attacks available to the Marine Fighter since their spears are designed to be used both as swords and spears.

I have included my latest version of the era, although I do not have most of the other fixes that you mentioned before. Also, the Orcs are now playable as a faction. I found that I had misspelled a unit name in the recruit list and that disabled the whole list for some reason.

Just a warning, this .zip file is rather large since I included something like 600 files in it. (I know the name is incorrect, but please excuse me on that.)

[dontano]

Just a note: since Orcs and Undead are default factions, there's no need to put all their data into your era. Just modify the eras.cfg like that:

Code: Select all

[era]
	id=era_Dark_century
	name= _ "Dark Century"

	{RANDOM_SIDE}
	{MP_SIDE default outcasts}
	{multiplayer/factions/undead-default.cfg}
	{multiplayer/factions/northerners-default.cfg}
[/era]

I already posted this in the 1.1c version.

[Eolith]

Ok. Hopefully I will manage to get it right.

I believe I have found out why the Hermit did not have a slowing attack in-game. The macro is {WEAPON_SPECIAL_SLOW} not {WEAPON_SPECIAL_SLOWS} which is what I was using previously. I have not had much chance to work on the era or campaign this weekend because I had work to do; I just finished fighting with MS Word over footnotes about half an hour ago. I will type up the rest of the campaign- assuming that nothing else gets in the way, that is.

Also, I have added another level 3 to the Hermit line. I will be doing the coding for it soon. The unit's name is Monster Slayer and it uses flaming chakram ranged and shield melee. The melee attack has the slows ability and is based on the Commander in South Guard (at least I think he is a Commander...) The unit would be useful against Undead. I am also working on a few other experimental units in order to add a bit more variety to the Outcast and Sea Elves factions.

[dontano]

Ok, I'll be waiting for a post then. Since I'm busy, too, with both DC and SXC, the Art thread is slowing down a little, and I'll try to upload the new sprites as soon as possible. Yesterday, my town has witnessed the first rains and the first power cuts, so I wasn't able to connect to the site.
Done sprites: Sage, Great Sage, Ancient Sage

[Mirion147]

Is the sage the only line that has magical capabilities?

[dontano]

Yes, as far as I know. The other ones have got Slow, Marksman and Back-stab.

[Eolith]

The only Outcast unit with magical abilities is the Sage. The Sea Elves have a special line of units based on water (Water Fairy) that can cure and have fairly good magic attacks. I don't have much time either today or tomorrow to work on DC, but I may be able to do the coding on Thursday and Friday. I will let you know.

@dontano: Congrats on finishing the Sage line sprites.

[dontano]

@dontano: Congrats on finishing the Sage line sprites.

Thanks. I'll keep up the work. I will post those sprites one by one, in order to slowly receive the critiques that I need to hold on the Art.
Missing sprites:
-The whole Hermit line;
-Sacked Apprentice line;
-Runaway Slave line;
-Most of the Rangers;
-The "new guy".

[Eolith]

Here are some of the new units. I have two to add for the Northerners, but I have yet to code for them.

new_units 9-16-08.zip

(3.97 KiB) Downloaded 229 times

Also, here is the info for the Sea Elves.

sea_elves-default.zip

(20.84 KiB) Downloaded 262 times

For some reason, BfW will not recognize any level 2 units in the Sea Elves faction. I don't know whether it recognizes the level 1 units, but I will try some more fiddling with WML to see if I can fix the problem.

Oh, by the way, I have basic coding for the first scenario in "From Darkness to Light" (FDtL). I will do more work on that soon.

@ dontano: I included the Northerners when I uploaded the last .zip file because they have a slightly different recruitment list and I am adding two units in soon. If there is a way to get around that problem, then let us take it.

P.S. Blazernot may be helping us out a bit once he learns WML. I talked to him yesterday and he indicated that he had interest in helping to develop DC. Also, if anyone knows how to use photoshop, Blazernot is probably interested in talking to you (he seems to be having some trouble with photoshop.)

[dontano]

Good, I'll check out where's the problem.

@ dontano: I included the Northerners when I uploaded the last .zip file because they have a slightly different recruitment list and I am adding two units in soon. If there is a way to get around that problem, then let us take it.

Allright. When I finish to modify the Sage line sprites, we can post the 1.2 version with the fixes you mentioned.

P.S. Blazernot may be helping us out a bit once he learns WML. I talked to him yesterday and he indicated that he had interest in helping to develop DC. Also, if anyone knows how to use photoshop, Blazernot is probably interested in talking to you (he seems to be having some trouble with photoshop.)

Ok, then. But just to warn you, I don't use photoshop. I usually use the Gimp, so I can try to answer him about graphical subjects in general. Anyway, there some good Art tutorials here in the Wiki section of the site, originally posted by Kitty.

[Eolith]

I intend to finish some fine-tuning today and upload the coding for the new Orc units tomorrow. After that, it may be a few days until I post again.

I just remembered, the Blind Beggar has lower defense on almost all terrain than the Heavy Infantry, plus he is slower. We may want to add something to the Blind Beggar to make it more useful in-game.

[dontano]

I apologize for the long absence. I'll try to catch up the work once again, if someone tells me what's the earliest posted version of Dark Century.