[Historical] Northern Rebirth Going Mainline

This is the place for discussing development of mainline campaigns, reporting bugs in them and providing overall feedback.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Locked
Taurus
Inactive Developer
Posts: 674
Joined: May 4th, 2005, 8:16 pm
Location: Canada

[Historical] Northern Rebirth Going Mainline

Post by Taurus »

Well, this is it! In no small part due to the help of Esr, Northern Rebirth is being prepared for incusion into the mainline version of Wesnoth. But first of all we are looking for feedback, on the campaign itself and the idea of it being included into the mainline. In addition, if there are any lingering bugs that anyone notices then please let us know.

The latest version has been uploaded on the 1.3 server, and I would reccomend that you use that version to base your comments on. Although the version on the 1.2 server at present - although no longer supported - still will do in a pinch as it is pretty much identical to the 1.3 version at the moment.

I would also like to point out that although the main storyline is fully functional and compleate, there is a branch of the campaign in which the player has the option to turn evil, triggering a differeant but parallel storyline. This branch is at the moment still under development (when you make the choice the diologe lets you know it is still under development).

So if anyone has any comments, critisizms or suggestions then please come forth :-)
Creater of the campaign, "Northern Rebirth"

Compleater of the campaign, "Son of the Black Eye"
SkeletonCrew
Inactive Developer
Posts: 787
Joined: March 31st, 2006, 6:55 am

Post by SkeletonCrew »

esr already brought up the discussion on irc the last few days but I'll post my opinion here as well. I haven't played Northern Rebirth for a while, but am about to restart it.

I really enjoyed the older version and would like to see it in mainline. The only thing which need to be fixed (and I know Jetryl is working on that) is the portrait art.
User avatar
zookeeper
WML Wizard
Posts: 9742
Joined: September 11th, 2004, 10:40 pm
Location: Finland

Post by zookeeper »

Ok, I haven't played through NR either, only played through the first scenario and hastily :n-skipped through several following scenarios. However, based on this brief look I have a few things that I think would really need changing before inclusion to mainline:
  • Some portrait art (yes, I know this is being worked on): Tallin's portrait, colouring of the ones that are currently black-on-white lineart.
  • The music of the second scenario. Please, remove it, it really hurts my ears.
  • Using story screens to imitate dialogue (at least Tallin speaking with Hamel in a story screen at some point, I think). The whole thing feels wrong, since in-scenario [message]s are basically always used for dialogue and story screens for narrative. It should be trivial to make a scripted talk-only scenario for these purposes, which IMO is the way these kinds of between-scenarios talks should be done.
I'll try to play it more thoroughly sometime soon.
silvermane
Posts: 44
Joined: November 5th, 2004, 8:40 am
Location: EU

Post by silvermane »

April's Fool, I guess?
User avatar
ivanovic
Lord of Translations
Posts: 1149
Joined: September 28th, 2004, 10:10 pm
Location: Germany

Post by ivanovic »

silvermane wrote:April's Fool, I guess?
No, it is for real, it was talked about this some days ago already in the IRC-chans, just have a look at http://irclog.wesnoth.org.
Taurus
Inactive Developer
Posts: 674
Joined: May 4th, 2005, 8:16 pm
Location: Canada

Post by Taurus »

zookeeper wrote:Ok, I haven't played through NR either, only played through the first scenario and hastily :n-skipped through several following scenarios. However, based on this brief look I have a few things that I think would really need changing before inclusion to mainline:
  • Some portrait art (yes, I know this is being worked on): Tallin's portrait, colouring of the ones that are currently black-on-white lineart.
I am looking foreward to colored portraits just as much as everyone else. However, it is up to the artists to see that it happens and unfotunatly I am not one :-( If anyone would like to help check out the following thread:

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... c&start=16
[*]The music of the second scenario. Please, remove it, it really hurts my ears.
LOL, I aggree. West said a while back that he may be able to make a new track for this scenario so I'll drop him a line and see how he is making out.
[*]Using story screens to imitate dialogue (at least Tallin speaking with Hamel in a story screen at some point, I think). The whole thing feels wrong, since in-scenario [message]s are basically always used for dialogue and story screens for narrative. It should be trivial to make a scripted talk-only scenario for these purposes, which IMO is the way these kinds of between-scenarios talks should be done.[/list]I'll try to play it more thoroughly sometime soon.
I aggree that it is not usually done this way, but the only issue is that there is a LOT of dialoge/sotry in this campaign. If I wanted to conform Northern Rebirth to every other campaign out there (which I don't) then I would have to make probobally 4 or 5 diologe only scenarios. Thus, I deliberatly put dialoge in the story screen so that if you are playing the campaign, you can skip over the diologe if you want to. If you have to restart the scenario, or are playing through the campaign on your seccond or third time - then you may not want to be clicking thorugh screans and screans of diologe.
Creater of the campaign, "Northern Rebirth"

Compleater of the campaign, "Son of the Black Eye"
User avatar
Eleazar
Retired Terrain Art Director
Posts: 2481
Joined: July 16th, 2004, 1:47 am
Location: US Midwest
Contact:

Post by Eleazar »

Comments on the Art: (i haven't played it yet)

Portraits: Of course it will be nicer to have them all colored, but i don't consider it a blocking point if they're not. I think a line art portrait is better than nothing.

Custom Units:

Please see the [url=http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=144358]art & sound requirements/url]. These were put together last year IIRC when considering the inclusion of new campaigns. I realize that not all of our current campaigns meets up to all of these, but i still think it's important that new content measure up before being added.

NR has 5 custom units 3 L3 outlaws and a custom L2,L3 Lich.
Obvious problems:
** astral-blade is an ugly old style attack icon.
** units are not TColored
** some frames are 70x70px (unsure of the effect)
* many shadows are hard edges
* the lich is also tiny compared to new units.

Hero Icon:
the image is there, i don't know if you actually use it, but it would be preferred that you use the indicator in trunk, but still that's your choice, IMHO.


Credits: You have some "thank-you"s in the front. You realize you can do credits specific to this campaign?
Last edited by Eleazar on April 1st, 2007, 8:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Feel free to PM me if you start a new terrain oriented thread. It's easy for me to miss them among all the other art threads.
-> What i might be working on
Attempting Lucidity
Taurus
Inactive Developer
Posts: 674
Joined: May 4th, 2005, 8:16 pm
Location: Canada

Post by Taurus »

Eleazar wrote:Comments on the Art: (i haven't played it yet)

Portraits: Of course it will be nicer to have them all colored, but i don't consider it a blocking point if they're not. I think a line art portrait is better than nothing.
Thanks Eleanzar. Just my thoughts as well, that's why I included them. A note as well, I don't know how many people noticed, but I deleated any non wesnoth specific artwork that was on this campaign to avoid any sort of complications complications which may arise. (I do technically have permission and all that but still, it's not the best).

Custom Units:

Please see the [url=http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=144358]art & sound requirements/url]. These were put together last year IIRC when considering the inclusion of new campaigns. I realize that not all of our current campaigns meets up to all of these, but i still think it's important that new content measure up before being added.

NR has 5 custom units 3 L3 outlaws and a custom L2,L3 Lich.
Obvious problems:
** astral-blade is an ugly old style attack icon.
** units are not TColored
** some frames are 70x70px (unsure of the effect)
* many shadows are hard edges
* the lich is also tiny compared to new units.
The custom units were not created by me. The L3 outlaws were takein from an add on pack which isn't supported by the autor anymore. I think it was scott who maintained them and he left Wesnoth a while back :-( . The Lich was orignally in the mainline but has since been removed. Rather then take the trouble to get new artwork and watnot for them, I think I'll just delete them and replace - the lich at least - with something that is in the mainline.

Hero Icon:
the image is there, i don't know if you actually use it, but it would be preferred that you use the indicator in trunk, but still that's your choice, IMHO.
I don't actually use it because most of the 'hero' unts are expendable. In other words, victory can still be achieved even if they die. The ones that are not, I am planning on making them so in future. This is another way in wich Northern Rebirth - I feel - is unique, because you can still compleate the campaign without most of your 'heros' although it will affect the storyline.
Credits: You have some "thank-you"s in the front. You realize you can do credits specific to this campaign?
Yes, they are in the back as well. The main reason that they are there is because the artists who have given me permission to use their art asked for a clear link back to their site. Now that their content is removed I should take it off - although I still feel that just the credits in the back don't do enough justice for all the help people have given me in this campaign.
Creater of the campaign, "Northern Rebirth"

Compleater of the campaign, "Son of the Black Eye"
User avatar
Eleazar
Retired Terrain Art Director
Posts: 2481
Joined: July 16th, 2004, 1:47 am
Location: US Midwest
Contact:

Post by Eleazar »

Taurus wrote:The L3 outlaws were taken from an add on pack which isn't supported by the autor anymore. I think it was scott who maintained them and he left Wesnoth a while back :-(
The L3 outlaws are used in several campaigns. If we got up-to-date images for them i believe there's support for adding them to mainline (but not as part of a default faction.)
Feel free to PM me if you start a new terrain oriented thread. It's easy for me to miss them among all the other art threads.
-> What i might be working on
Attempting Lucidity
Taurus
Inactive Developer
Posts: 674
Joined: May 4th, 2005, 8:16 pm
Location: Canada

Post by Taurus »

Eleazar wrote:
Taurus wrote:The L3 outlaws were taken from an add on pack which isn't supported by the autor anymore. I think it was scott who maintained them and he left Wesnoth a while back :-(
The L3 outlaws are used in several campaigns. If we got up-to-date images for them i believe there's support for adding them to mainline (but not as part of a default faction.)
Amen to that :-) If they are added to the mainline then I would revert to those.

From day one, I have always had the philosophy that Wesnoth has so many great units as it is. Why go through all the effort to make new ones - which in my case would be crappy at best - when you have this huge database to tap into.
Creater of the campaign, "Northern Rebirth"

Compleater of the campaign, "Son of the Black Eye"
troodon
Posts: 218
Joined: July 22nd, 2006, 8:55 pm

Post by troodon »

I'm glad Northern Rebirth will finally be in the mainline version of Wesnoth. However, I found a problem in version 1.18 of the campaign, which you may or may not have fixed already. In the scenario "Get the Gold, Anita was nowhere to be seen except on the recall list. I fixed it so she can recruit. Here is the changed file:
Warning: this is on Wesnoth 1.2.2., Northern Rebirth 1.18
Attachments
Get_the_Gold.cfg
(15.76 KiB) Downloaded 902 times
User avatar
Eleazar
Retired Terrain Art Director
Posts: 2481
Joined: July 16th, 2004, 1:47 am
Location: US Midwest
Contact:

Post by Eleazar »

Terrain:
The other art concern is that the maps seem to ignore any terrain developments of the past 2 years. Virtually no terrain variants are used, and more tactically important, none of the new hybrid terrains are used, especially those devised to make caves more interesting. This is Wesnoth! a level should contain terrains that vary the defense %. For instance there no, chasms, lava, dwarvish villages, nearly no dwarvish castles, cave hills, illuminated cave, or mushroom grove.

The outer world could be improved with elvish castles, elvish trees, swamp, farms, flowers, savannah, impassable mountains etc.

It's relatively easy for someone to insert graphical variants appropriately if they've played the game a know what the location is supposed to be like. However it requires some one more familiar with things to insert the new cave hybrid terrains, because if it's done wrong the balance of the map is ruined.
Feel free to PM me if you start a new terrain oriented thread. It's easy for me to miss them among all the other art threads.
-> What i might be working on
Attempting Lucidity
torangan
Retired Developer
Posts: 1365
Joined: March 27th, 2004, 12:25 am
Location: Germany

Post by torangan »

Taurus wrote:Thus, I deliberatly put dialoge in the story screen so that if you are playing the campaign, you can skip over the diologe if you want to. If you have to restart the scenario, or are playing through the campaign on your seccond or third time - then you may not want to be clicking thorugh screans and screans of diologe.
Try to press Escape in such a situation and start to smile.
WesCamp-i18n - Translations for User Campaigns:
http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/WesCamp

Translators for all languages required: contact me. No geek skills required!
Taurus
Inactive Developer
Posts: 674
Joined: May 4th, 2005, 8:16 pm
Location: Canada

Post by Taurus »

troodon wrote:I'm glad Northern Rebirth will finally be in the mainline version of Wesnoth. However, I found a problem in version 1.18 of the campaign, which you may or may not have fixed already. In the scenario "Get the Gold, Anita was nowhere to be seen except on the recall list. I fixed it so she can recruit. Here is the changed file:
Warning: this is on Wesnoth 1.2.2., Northern Rebirth 1.18
Hey Troodon. I actually fixed that bug in one of the later releases, as well as rebalanced that scenario in general. However, I do appreciate you taking the time to report and fix this :-)
Eleazar wrote:Terrain:
The other art concern is that the maps seem to ignore any terrain developments of the past 2 years. Virtually no terrain variants are used, and more tactically important, none of the new hybrid terrains are used, especially those devised to make caves more interesting. This is Wesnoth! a level should contain terrains that vary the defense %. For instance there no, chasms, lava, dwarvish villages, nearly no dwarvish castles, cave hills, illuminated cave, or mushroom grove.

The outer world could be improved with elvish castles, elvish trees, swamp, farms, flowers, savannah, impassable mountains etc.

It's relatively easy for someone to insert graphical variants appropriately if they've played the game a know what the location is supposed to be like. However it requires some one more familiar with things to insert the new cave hybrid terrains, because if it's done wrong the balance of the map is ruined.
Very good point, thanks Eleazar (again)! The reason why they seem to ignore any terrain development over the past two years, is because they were pretty much develped more then two years ago :-S (man, has it really been that long). If you see some of the more recient maps in the undead branch they include the advances. Anyhow, I'll get to upgrading the old ones.
toranan wrote:Try to press Escape in such a situation and start to smile.
...... oh :oops: You know, I actually didn't know that! But, I personally still prefer it the way it is. Of course, if enogh people disagree with me then I could change it but...
Creater of the campaign, "Northern Rebirth"

Compleater of the campaign, "Son of the Black Eye"
User avatar
turin
Lord of the East
Posts: 11662
Joined: January 11th, 2004, 7:17 pm
Location: Texas
Contact:

Post by turin »

:? Whatever. Honestly, this isn't the campaign I would have picked to go mainline with... I find the first scenario simply unacceptably boring. But I'm not going to say any more on this subject.
For I am Turin Turambar - Master of Doom, by doom mastered. On permanent Wesbreak. Will not respond to private messages. Sorry!
And I hate stupid people.
The World of Orbivm
Locked