Introductions

[esr]

This topic is for our writers to introduce themselves. Check in and give us some idea of your interests, your capabilities, and your availability.

I'll start. I'm your Lord of Prose, full name Eric S. Raymond, and yes I'm the famous open-source ESR but that probably will never be relevant here and fanboy or hater posts will be swiftly deleted. It is relevant that I am also a core Wesnoth developer and campaign designer (The Hammer of Thursagan). I am the project's most prolific producer of campaigns, in the sense of "movie producer" ; I have adapted and script-doctored all of the last nine campaigns to be mainlined since I joined the project in 2006.

I am also the project's main author and maintainer for WML-related tools, including wmlscope, wmllint, and wmlindent. A third hat I wear that is more relevant to writing is that I am currently the principal Wesnoth history maintainer.

My writing interests in this project center on improving the quality of Wesnoth storyline prose. I'll cheerfully document my own stuff; I will document other things as needed, but am less interested in that kind of work. In the past I have written or edited our major release announcements and done much of the wiki maintainance, but would like to offload those jobs.

Probably my most significant writerly skill for Wesnoth purposes is that I am good at pastiching archaic and poetic English from various periods; I can do pseudo-Elizabethan, or write Edwardian high-fantasy prose a la Tolkien/Dunsany/Eddison, or even write in something with a lifelike resemblance to the archaic Scots of Robert Burns. I use this time-machine capability heavily in writing and editing campaigns. I am also an English grammar and usage expert, but a very poor typist

My availability is high, Wesnoth is currently one of my two main projects.

[Simons Mith]

Ooh. New forum. HELLO!! ... ELLO ... ello ... ello ... o.

Still a bit echoey. Needs a few more threads. I'm officially introducing myself here per request from esr.

I'm a technical writer currently at loose ends between jobs. I'm also a good editor with a knack for polishing prose just by changing a few key words. I've volunteered to work on rewriting or tweaking any parts of the Wesnoth prose, and Eric tells me his current top priority is the Wesnoth manual. And there's already a handy list to work from (thanks Turuk and dlh) so I suppose I might as well just set to.

If you want prose-polishing services on a user-made-campaign, send me a private message. I don't generally seek out UMCs while wearing my editor hat, but if I'm contacted by the author I'll be much more willing to look critically at a UMC and fix the prose where needed. Depending on how much work this offer generates I may withdraw it or modify it from time to time.

[dlp]

I'm a human factors engineer (the field is referred to more commonly as "ergonomics") and have knowledge about human cognition, perception, and sensation, as well as significant experience writing, reviewing, and editing scientific and technical materials for various media, including professional journals and books. I've played BfW for roughly a month. The closest I've come to experiencing similar games involved old-fashioned wargames that used paper maps, cardboard units, and dice. I have, however, played other types of video and computer games and am a "manual reader" type.

I believe this background qualifies me for the task that's brought me here, i.e., editing the manual, especially because manuals are intended mainly for beginners like myself. My obvious weakness is incomplete knowledge of the game. I hope to compensate by relying on veterans like Simons Mith and expect we'll make a good team.

My availability is high, but I doubt there will be much call for my skills once the manual edits are done.

[esr]

My availability is high, but I doubt there will be much call for my skills once the manual edits are done.

You must be joking! We're desperately short of people who understand human factors in any systematic way - closest to it among the core devs is probably me, and that's not bragging nor is it good news for the project. There'll be plenty of useful work for you to do tuning the UI.

[Dragonchampion]

Well, I jumped myself into thos area, because I am an author with several unpublished books, and I love helping write manuals (storyline ones anyways) I am currently working on my era, but will check up from time to time.

[Newell]

Well hey there.

Creative writing is more my domain but clear and concise prose is easily handled. I'm a grammar Nazi and can handle proof reading, so I'll happily polish up or improve anything put in front of me.
I'm decent at mimicking others' style of writing; my own style, however, is very much influenced by the great Victorian writers and poets.

My availability is presently high, though this may change in a few weeks.

[dlp]

There'll be plenty of useful work for you to do tuning the UI.

I'm willing to contribute in that area, too.

[Thunderlord]

I'm willing to contribute in this area. I'm pretty much horrible at art, and I would like contribute to Wesnoth somehow. However, I may not be able to work as often as several others... and I procrastinate a lot.

[Bewilderbeast]

Hey everybody. I'm a creative writing major with a sincere interest in starting a career writing for video games. Doing some work for Battle for Wesnoth seems like a great way to pad my resume. I haven't played the game in about a year, but my current plan is to re-familiarize myself with Wesnoth over the next month or so, and then spend my summer doing whatever work I can get to improve Wesnoth.

My work with the video game medium is fairly limited; I've done a little work with MUDs and interactive fiction, but that's about it. My philosophy is that video game writing (especially dialogue) should be short, crisp and engaging for the player... long monologues are something I advise avoiding. Examples of what I consider good game writing include games like Arcanum, Planescape: Torment, the Fallout series (the new one inclusive: good work, Bethesda!), and Portal. Examples of what I consider sub-par game writing include many JRPGs and first-person shooters, along with anything with a 'silent protaganist'.

Outside of games, I do mostly poetry and short fiction, with a little bit of playwriting experience.

Feel free to message me on these boards or e-mail me if you're interested in my help. I'm looking forward to working on this great game with all of you.

[opensourcejunkie]

Hi, my name is Nate; I'm a worker at Target Corporation with absolutely no writing credentials whatsoever. I have had some experience with technical writing; I had to document some software for a college job.

More recently, I decided to informally study fiction writing. After reading some books on the topic, and practicing with a few short stories, I decided to write a campaign for wesnoth, as a sort of dry run before I try to write a novel.

The campaign (Sceptre of Life) has generally received positive feedback, so I guess I'm doing something right ;-). Because of SoL, my availability is relatively low, but if needed, I can offer suggestions or polish prose, etc. Just shoot me a pm and I'll get back to you.

--OSJ

[TheGreatRings]

I'm a university undergraduate majoring in Film Production, planning to go into screenwriting. I suck at grammer and spelling, so I won't be much help as an editor. My main areas of interest in writing, and in Wesnoth, are improving the realism, the depth, and the level of continuity in the stories and dialog. So put me down as another for dialog pollishing. I don't know if any of this will be of any help, but if I can help improve Wesnoth in any way, I'll be happy to do so. Low availabillity right now due to being a student, but come summer I should have much more time.

[The1exile]

Similarly to Thunderlord, I can't approach art with anything more than optimistic enthusiasm, but would like to contribute to Wesnoth. I have no official writing credentials beyond an A level in English Literature, but I write for roleplaying games on occasion and am a fairly decent amateur poet, too. Tasks like redrafting some UMC story dialogue would be right up my street.

[Akkarin345]

Wow before I took a break from the forum I remember this being requested, I just didn't think it was going to happen.

Well in the eyes of many I am still a kid. However I still love writing and do it actively in my spare time. Although I am not talented in most areas of gifting to Wesnoth I can come up with a few story ideas. I'd love to help out anyone who wants a campaign writing, checking grammar, spelling anything like that.

I've also written a couple of my own stories so if anyone is board then send me a mail and you can read them

I don't know what else to say lol

(As for what qualifications I have in English well ... none yet but I have the GCSE in a few weeks and I am going to take A level )

EDIT:

Oh availability forgot that, well exams in a few weeks so not that active. However I have an extended summer so I will be actively writing on a personal interest, hoping to resurrect my campaign and I’ll be up for any writing of Wesnoth then.


And then the spelling ....

[Turuk]

Akkarin345, so you know, there are at least 4 spelling errors in the post above, as well as capitalization and punctuation issues.

While this may not be indicative of your ability to write, do note that people on the forums are going to judge you by what they can most readily tell about you, and that will be the posts that you make. This goes for anyone who is interested, not just you. So for those who are interested, it would behoove you to proofread your posts as you would any document for your school or professional life.

[Akkarin345]

Akkarin345, so you know, there are at least 4 spelling errors in the post above, as well as capitalization and punctuation issues.

While this may not be indicative of your ability to write, do note that people on the forums are going to judge you by what they can most readily tell about you, and that will be the posts that you make. This goes for anyone who is interested, not just you. So for those who are interested, it would behoove you to proofread your posts as you would any document for your school or professional life.

I didn't check my post too well obviously. I would check any writing for a campaign though a few times and not just a quick one look through glance.