[policy discussion] how to get a Campaign in the Mainline

[Eleazar]

I think it would be helpful to have a sticky in the campaign development reguarding the inclusion of campaigns into the mainline. Here's what came to mind:


There is no guranteed process or objective standard for getting a campaign mainline. Campaigns have not been frequently changed, but neither are they set in stone. Recent changes have made it easier to add/remove campaings from the development version. "Son of the Black Eye" and "Dark Hoards" have been removed because they were unfinished, broken in 1.1.1+ and unmaintained. Other campaigns have and will be added since 1.0. However, not all good campaigns will be added to the mainline, (the download would get too bloated, and the campaign server is easy to use.)


Here are some things that would be considered:

Requirements:
* All custom units must meet the minimum standards for new units. (however custom units need not balance outside of the campaign)
* It must be fully compatable with the latest dev version of Wesnoth
* It must have active maintainer(s) who can use SVN
* It must be complete
* It must not contradict established Wesnothian history
* It must not have excessive mature content. (Sirp's decree)
* It must be fun

Bonus Points: - Preference will be given to campaigns that:
* offer someting unique
* are the best in their class
* encourage the development of good tactics.
* encourage the understanding of the uses of mainline units.
* feature under-utilized factions. (minor)
* shows off the new features of the game. (minor)



So if your campaign meets all the objective and some of the criterion, what do you do next? We advise: nothing. Allow time for the campaign to build popular support, and for the devs to try it out.

[turin]

I don't know what others feel about this requirement, but I think it is rather important:

* If your campaign says something about Wesnoth history, try not to contradict what the official campaigns have said, or what the WesnothHistory wiki page says (the second one is less important).

[freim]

I don't know what others feel about this requirement, but I think it is rather important:

* If your campaign says something about Wesnoth history, try not to contradict what the official campaigns have said, or what the WesnothHistory wiki page says (the second one is less important).

I find this important also. I would very much like to see a coherent and rich "Wesnoth universe". I would say this should be one of the most important requirement to be consider for inclusion into mainline.

[scott]

Do we need a set policy for one-time unique events? The question is begged: under what conditions do we seek out new official campaigns in the first place? The recent change was because we didn't have a maintainer for the campaigns, and it showed. Will we grow tired with TSG and TB, or decide two beginner campaigns are redundant?

A good set of objectives for why official campaigns exist will be a signpost to why the official list can ever be expected to change in the first place and prevent "disposable inclusion." I think you're right on pretty much, but this list is more useful for the developer team than for users. Regardless, I would require the campaign be complete. At this point we can be picky.

[Eleazar]

Must not violate established Wesnoth History.

Good idea.

Do we need a set policy for one-time unique events? The question is begged: under what conditions do we seek out new official campaigns in the first place? The recent change was because we didn't have a maintainer for the campaigns, and it showed. Will we grow tired with TSG and TB, or decide two beginner campaigns are redundant?

I'm thinking of these more as guidelines, rather than policy. Each addition or removal of a campaign will be a unique event, but i think will have many of these criterion in common. I think it's very likely that our campaign line-up will change before we reach 2.0. After-all we've made it easier to add and subtract, we should be willing to do so.

Also if i was a UMC designer i think i would like to see something like this, and it may help avoid hard feelings in the future.

A good set of objectives for why official campaigns exist will be a signpost to why the official list can ever be expected to change in the first place and prevent "disposable inclusion." I think you're right on pretty much, but this list is more useful for the developer team than for users. Regardless, I would require the campaign be complete. At this point we can be picky.

Getting the developers on the same page is part of my purpose. It took an awful long time to add TB and SG (with lots of talking) and a long time with DH and SotBE being broken before we removed them. I think part of the problem we hadn't yet thought through some of these things.

Edit: added a few items.