Alfhelm the Wise

[UnwiseOwl]

(1) What difficulty levels and game (& campaign) versions have you played the scenario/campaign on? (If reviewing a specific scenario, please specify. Give detailed reviews of as many scenarios as you feel like.)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario/campaign? Which, if any, parts posed problems that felt like they should not, and which, if any, seemed unintentionally easy? Were the scenario objectives ever unclear?

(3) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline? If you have suggestions for rephrasing of certain parts of the dialog that seemed awkward or were grammatically incorrect, post them.

(4) How fun do you think the campaign is? What, if any, are changes you would have made to the campaign to make it more fun?


Keep in mind that this campaign relies on the Imperial Era for most of its unit artwork; if you have suggestions for the balancing or artwork of the units, post them in the Imperial Era thread, not here. If you are interested in contributing to this campaign, or in helping develop other campaigns set in the World of Orbivm, post something on the Orbivm forums.

[Grothendieck]

I took off toward the seeress's house without recruiting anyone. I met no enemies, and was never informed that I needed to hold my village. Then suddenly I was informed that I had lost because orcs took my village...

On replay, I took time to recruit, and met orcs, and was told to hold the village.

I think it should be made clear from the beginning that one should recruit and prepare to hold the base against attack.

[wakozako]

Great game! Lots of plot twists, varied and credible characters, new units... Refreshing for a seasoned player like myself.
In part two, the two first scenarios at least were way too easy (I'm playing on hard).
Now I'm at the fall of Lavinium, with not much cash and I can't see any way I'm going to survive... Maybe a plot twist

[giapo]

The plot was one of the kind.But I find impossible to win the scenario

Spoiler:

, in which with only two hunters and Alfhelm, you have to clear the forest from a whole bunch of bears, plus moving too slow in the terrain

[jpaulson]

Playing on medium, Wesnoth 1.6.5, campaign version .4

Excellent campaign so far (I'm a few scenarios into part 2). Two comments:
1) In the battle with the two brothers, you should be able to step on the keep/village after the second brother is dead.
2) In the Pass of Arendia, the orcs are very strong; on turn 7, they killed the enemy commander and I won...without ever seeing him. Either tone down the orcs, make them allied with the humans, or make the humans stronger.

[jpaulson]

I agree with giapo that the bears mission is impossible if you don't happen to have leveled hunters in your recall list. Seems like an unfortunate design decision. Maybe the player should get to choose which 3 units they want with them (one of those one-turn keep things)?

[Chefu]

Campaign ported over to Wesnoth 1.8 - Please leave your feedback below or over at the Orbivm forums: http://www.exong.net/orbivm/forum/index.php

Thanks,
Chefu

[taptap]

Any chance to see this on 1.10?

[UnwiseOwl]

It's in the list of things I'd do if I could find the time.
Unfortunately, a proper port that fixes all the errors hasn't been done for this one since Turin left after porting it to 1.6, and it's a long campaign that a lot of errors have crept into. I have a version that's partially updated for 1.10, but work on it is slow going, and so while it's in the works and will get there eventually, it's not going to be up and going for a couple of months, at least.
(You know, unless Chefu or Turin comes back and does it...)

[AxalaraFlame]

sorry the dardian horseman above...I cannot even play it anymore with the 1.6 version. Can u at least tell me how to test this campaign?

[UnwiseOwl]

If you're really keen to play AtW and just can't wait, you can download it from the 1.8 addons server at http://addons.wesnoth.org/1.8/ and put it in your add-ons folder. You'll have to debug your way into the campaign, and from experience there's two or three issues to fix in every scenario. This is an old campaign and it needs updating (a slow process that I'm part way through), but if you want to play it, or better yet want to debug it so that it can be played by us all, you're more than welcome.

[UnwiseOwl]

The Orbivm necromancer cabal is proud to announce that Alfhelm the Wise is now available on the 1.10 add-ons server. This port has been a time consuming process, and while the campaign is far from perfect, I'd love it if you'd like to play it and give feedback. I have a number of ideas for improving it myself, but any suggestions, and of course any bugs, that you're able to find would be invaluable.
My thanks, UnwiseOwl.

[UnwiseOwl]

Thanks for that, AxalaraFlame. I'm pretty sure that you've summed up what mixture of emotions that turin was shooting for when he wrote this campaign, and I'm sure he'd be proud that he'd been able to convey them. He really tried to push Orbivm as a deep emotional experience, so I'm glad that you've been able to see that here. I'm also pleased to have been able to port it for you.
Was there any scenarios that you felt detracted from the story and desperately need to be improved? Some of the wml is pretty primitive and could do with a shake-up, but at the moment I'm more concerned with dialogue and story, so since you thought that it was so good, I'd be interested to hear what you might change.

[UnwiseOwl]

You know, the new version has a dozen of bugs, but that does not really matter because the story is good. I am pretty sure some of them would be rather obvious to see if you play it.

Oh, I know, I think many of them have always been there, though. I don't have time to fix them in the near future, but I have a little list, and if you notice anything that I don't then it'd be good to be able to add to it. I played the campaign through a couple of times while porting it.

The map is not completely updated, thereby many hexes remain "image not found" stuff around the whole campaign.

Really? Can you give examples? I'm running 1.10.3 and didn't notice anything...

The scenerio of burning down Lavinia needs some improvements. The objective is not clear enough, and it is somehow confusing and misleading. At first I thought the objective was to destroy all villages in Lavinia, because I just cannot find where to set the city on fire; and I made great efforts on it, only to fail consequently. I suggest you to mark a signpost on the fire spot, and ask players to set fire on the point.

Already on the list. It'll be an 'attack' marker, rather than a signpost, though.

What's more, there are many animation bugs; say, one of the most famous characters Vaniyera. He is a Veiled Blade(or Dark Thunderblade etc.), but his attacking animation was unfinished and it remains a thunderblade. That is a very bony mistake

Yeah, I know that Turin 'fixed' this and so did Chefu. That's already on my list too.

Besides, I have been wondering about the gender of Vaniyera for a long time. Although "he" is mentioned as "he" many times, I suppose a man could be never called as "Vaniyera", since it is obviously a female name I really want an explanation, bro.

I'd always assumed that Vaniyera was a man, but since there's no portraits I guess you can think what you like. I'm not aware that Vaniyera is a conclusively female name construction for the medieval celtic period that the Sidhe names are inspired by, though.

[UnwiseOwl]

The Berdssen ones I knew about. I have ambitions to completely re-write that scenario, so I'll deal with this then.
The graphics ones are interesting. What version of Wesnoth are you running, and does this happen all the time or only if you're in debug mode?
The Boatsman one is just weird. I've never noticed that before...