New Mainline Campaign by Developer team?

[Pic]

**** LONG SUPPORT OF JW's STORYLINE SHOWING HOW BATTLES CAN BE NOT CONTRIVED AND ALSO HOW THE STORY CAN GAIN LAYERS OF DEPTH, SO YOU SHOULD ALL AGREE ITS COOL AND DO IT*****

As it seemed to me that the battles could end up being a bit contrived, but thinking about it...there could be several plot twists were a battle could take place. For instance, Storyline starts off on him researching in wherever he lives, and as it gets more in depth he has to go off and find a place. He looks for a place (Maybe a wild battle (but I find wild battles contrived)) and finds a excellent liar (full of ogres/big rats/and such) and so hires mercenaries to free up his new home (battle). After his new home is free some mercenaries are paid to stick around, but as they see his experiments, they turn on him (battle). (Maybe his dark arts are now strong enough to now, with the aid of drugs, keep some of the defeated mercenaries as a retinue either as alive and brainwashed/drugged or as undead.)
Then a message comes to return to his fathers side (as he is dying in JW’s story) so the messenger comes, sees the experiments and the slaughter, and as one of the mercenaries was a respected man in the town is in a bit of shock! So he delivers (or drops) the message and leaves. As the mage is returning to the city a group of city guard face him on the road (Due to the horrors the messenger has seen, the mage is now a wanted man) Another fight in the city and then he spends the last few moments of his fathers life but his fathers side (Wouldn’t it be terrible if his father condemns him for the path he is taking now that he has battled a town and city guard and cannot turn back?)

…and so on…Basically I think the story can have some depth to it as well as some proper reasons for battles

[Rhuvaen]

If the point is to get a strong mainline campaign for 1.3, why not rework HttT? It's the defining story of the game. It's still one of the most played campaigns in the sense that most players have played it at some point or other.

It's not like a good plot is already half the job done. IMO, scenarios improve by getting a lot of testing and opinions (by a lot of people), and going over and over ironing out the rough edges. An already existing campaign of the magnitude of HttT has already been through that process for quite a while, and would be a much better starting point than a blank sheet of screen.

My recommendation: give someone great liberties at editing HttT (changing the plot, completely removing or reworking scenarios etc.).

[Pic]

I disagree with zookeeper as in all good stories there is development, its entirely possible what starts off as one mans want can turn into something much, much bigger, including wars and the like, its all a matter of writing the story well.


-edit-
A lot of the campaigns iv'e played have a flat storyline because of the very fact that there is no development of characters or really development of story, as soon as you start most campaigns you can tell basically, what the end will be.
-/edit-

[Rhuvaen]

Stories of "one man's want" are usually a matter of taste: they rely on a successful identification of the player with those same interests. If those interests are purely selfish, then a lot of people might not really participate in the story. A story about survival or justice will engage a much greater number of players, just because the motives are so evident.

When doing as much work as is needed for making a complete, even epic, campaign, why cater to specific tastes and limit your audience?

[zookeeper]

If the point is to get a strong mainline campaign for 1.3, why not rework HttT? It's the defining story of the game. It's still one of the most played campaigns in the sense that most players have played it at some point or other.

I've thought about this for a short while already, and talked rather briefly about it with Jetryl (who, coincidentally, had had the same idea). It certainly is a tempting idea. It is the "main campaign", so it should be really good, which it currently really isn't (the first half is good, the rest is mostly boring). I'll probably try to talk with him about the whole thing a bit more as soon as possible...

[Pic]

Rhuvaen does make a point about catering towards certain tastes and it is a certain flavour of story.

So i take all my support back (Sorry JW)

But if it is going to be another war story like all the others it would have to be executed superbly and much better then in previous campaigns where the story has been rather flat.

Perhaps character development isn't as important in wesnoth (Though it would be nice)

But if at the beginning of the story you can already see the end then it can be sometimes quite a slog to just get to the obvious ending, double so if it will be an epic, so story development, and taking it in unexpected turns i think is very important.

[torangan]

The undead storyline does even allow for a fork which is choosen in a subtle way. Just let the player decide at certain points wheter to go down deeper into the dark path or remain more on the human side. The further you're in one path, the less tempting choosing the other way should get. At some point you define which one was choosen and then the story goes either to a bad end for our "hero" or he'll come back to the living. Something like finally accepting that he won't reach his goal ever and now he has to fight free from the dark path. Other necromancers won't like it, normal people won't help until he's made some progress...

[JW]

If the point is to get a strong mainline campaign for 1.3, why not rework HttT? It's the defining story of the game. It's still one of the most played campaigns in the sense that most players have played it at some point or other.

It's not like a good plot is already half the job done. IMO, scenarios improve by getting a lot of testing and opinions (by a lot of people), and going over and over ironing out the rough edges. An already existing campaign of the magnitude of HttT has already been through that process for quite a while, and would be a much better starting point than a blank sheet of screen.

My recommendation: give someone great liberties at editing HttT (changing the plot, completely removing or reworking scenarios etc.).

I'd rather keep the classic HttT and rework one of the other campaigns. HttT, as has been said, is the marquee campaign for this game because of how well it's been managed over the years. Drastically altering it in the manner of which you're speaking I think would more easily end to butchering the campaign than bettering it.

[JW]

When doing as much work as is needed for making a complete, even epic, campaign, why cater to specific tastes and limit your audience?

Why must a campaign be epic?
Why must a campaign appeal to the lowest common denominator?

The undead storyline does even allow for a fork which is choosen in a subtle way.

Why must there be major branches to fork at? ---Do any of the other mainline campaigns really have this? I've only played HttT all the way through, and it does not. Only minor choices are made, so there is at least strong precedent for having mainline campaigns that do not fork in a major way.

Also, are you saying I cannot write a decent fork into this storyline?

Now I'm determined to show you guys how good this story could become. I only spent 20 minutes or so writing that description up off of a loose idea in my head. Today I will add some side characters (of which there were none if you didn't notice) and specifically point out places, and options, for a split in the campaign. (even though I don't think one is necessary, I do believe it would be a good option.)

That first post was just an attempt to show you the style and potential of my writing abilities really, and I was hoping for more constructive feedback from longtime regulars to help me develop my ideas more -you know, like cooperative input. I'll just polish up the idea some more to make it all nice and shiny then. It's only going to get better guys, so either jump on the bandwagon now, or jump on it later.



ps, I'm not going to listen to criticisms of "this can't be done well" or "this won't appeal to a wide audience", because that's basically just underestimating my writing ability. If you have any other helpful comments though, please add them.

pps,

Stories of "one man's want" are usually a matter of taste: they rely on a successful identification of the player with those same interests. If those interests are purely selfish, then a lot of people might not really participate in the story. A story about survival or justice will engage a much greater number of players, just because the motives are so evident.

So wanting to save your loved ones is not a universally evident motive? Is that what you are saying here Rhuvaen? The fact that this motive drives the main character to do things others would not does not change his motive.

[Pic]

Im Mr Flip flop and am switching back to JW side (Do i have to agree whenever someone makes a good point? Yes! Undue thinking for myself hurts the brain. Besides..i liked the story first time round)

What i want to know JW, is how you plan to impliment battles without lots of random wildness ones, kinda along the line i was syaing in a previous post? Or do you already have a specific battle plan?

[torangan]

Why must there be major branches to fork at? ---Do any of the other mainline campaigns really have this? I've only played HttT all the way through, and it does not. Only minor choices are made, so there is at least strong precedent for having mainline campaigns that do not fork in a major way.

Also, are you saying I cannot write a decent fork into this storyline?

It's no requirement, just a personal preference. It's a nice feature of the engine which I consider to be used to little.
I just noticed that the storyline you scetched allows easily for forking and of course also for little optional side goals or optional scenarios. So it's more like the opposite.

[Pic]

Plus forking gives great reply value

[turin]

I support JW's campaign idea. It sounds cool.


I also support reworking HttT. It has major issues that need to be resolved, IMHO.

[Rhuvaen]

Why must a campaign be epic?

Who said it must? The word has certainly appeared a suspicious number of times in this thread, so it wasn't an unconnected assumption.

Why must a campaign appeal to the lowest common denominator?

I didn't go to that extreme, but it's obvious that if you want to deliver good gameplay to a lot of players, the story shouldn't detract from the mass-appeal.
Of course, Wesnoth has a history of developers doing things as they like, which is a by now a time-honoured principle.

So wanting to save your loved ones is not a universally evident motive? Is that what you are saying here Rhuvaen?

In no way was I referring to your story. I quoted the relevant parts of Pic's post that I was replying to (EDIT: no I didn't - I didn't do it because I was posting immediately below his post, so I thought the connection would be obvious). So please don't try to read my post as an attempt at derailing your story, which it isn't.

[JW]

Why must a campaign be epic?

Who said it must? The word has certainly appeared a suspicious number of times in this thread, so it wasn't an unconnected assumption.

Why must a campaign appeal to the lowest common denominator?

I didn't go to that extreme, but it's obvious that if you want to deliver good gameplay to a lot of players, the story shouldn't detract from the mass-appeal.
Of course, Wesnoth has a history of developers doing things as they like, which is a by now a time-honoured principle.

So wanting to save your loved ones is not a universally evident motive? Is that what you are saying here Rhuvaen?

In no way was I referring to your story. I quoted the relevant parts of Pic's post that I was replying to. So please don't try to read my post as an attempt at derailing your story, which it isn't.

Okay. I was a little sleepy when I read those posts for the first time, sorry!

I'm going to start a new thread for this campaign idea to storyboard it better.