A specific question concerning NRIW

[Orcish Shyde]

Despite the obviously low chances of any given UMC being mainlined, I am eventually intending for just that to happen to my campaign 'Necromancer'. With that in mind...

One of the missions is outright called "Heretic", and revolves around the titular necromancer finding and executing a lich who's been terrorizing some peasants, with the following exact line of dialogue:
"In the name of the Dark Gods, I declare you heretic and anathema!"

Furthermore, the main antagonist of the campaign repeatedly refers to the main hero as a heretic, is himself called a heretic by one of your allies in the final battle, and has a custom unit type called an Inquisitor (which gameplay-wise is just meant to be a Paladin on steroids). One of your allies in the final mission is explicitly called a Cardinal, though he's just meant to be a high-ranking Mage of Light in the same monastic order as the villain.

It strikes me that much of the above would have to be changed to adhere to NRIW (particularly renaming the Cardinal and the Inquisitor). How much of it, though?

[Turuk]

Despite the obviously low chances of any given UMC being mainlined, I am eventually intending for just that to happen to my campaign 'Necromancer'. With that in mind...

I think you hit the nail on the head here. UMCs have been mainlined more than you might think, by the way, but given that it is rare/might take a while for your campaign, it seems like you are worrying about the cart before the horse.

For what it's worth, the word heretic can be used with a non-religious connotation. It can be deviation from an accepted belief or doctrine. "The whole world believes that you can live on the Coca-Cola side of life, and yet you claim it is Pepsi? Heretic!"

Mainly though, each campaign would be judged on a case by case basis if it was up for inclusion into mainline. As such, debating it now serves little purpose.

[zookeeper]

Despite the obviously low chances of any given UMC being mainlined, I am eventually intending for just that to happen to my campaign 'Necromancer'. With that in mind...

I think you hit the nail on the head here. UMCs have been mainlined more than you might think, by the way, but given that it is rare/might take a while for your campaign, it seems like you are worrying about the cart before the horse.

Uh, yeah. At least 10 of the current campaigns have been clearly UMC first. I'm not sure if EI and TRoW were really UMC first and then got mainlined or whether they were added to mainline pretty much immediately because there was so few campaigns back then.

[Noy]

Is there a specific reason you're asking this... or are you trying to be difficult, like usual?

[Dave]

I think that there are very very few things that could be in a campaign that would make us reject the campaign from ever being in mainline.

If you make a high quality, fun campaign with a good storyline, that is far more important than following any 'rules' regarding content. We follow a 'publisher' model of including content that we think is excellent, without having to agree with every single aspect of that content ourselves.

If a campaign is high quality and we want it included, we'll be happy to work with the author in modifying it in any ways necessary to make it appropriate for mainline. If the author feels strongly that the modifications would destroy fundamental artistic qualities of their campaign, we'll probably accept that, and let it in anyway, without the modifications, or with modifications the author feels happy with.

David

[turin]

I'm not sure if EI and TRoW were really UMC first and then got mainlined or whether they were added to mainline pretty much immediately because there was so few campaigns back then.

Both were UMC for a decent amount of time before being mainlined; we didn't have the campaign server back then of course, but we distributed them through .tar.gz's on the forums. But they were both mainlined before they were actually complete, which never happens nowadays.

[Orcish Shyde]

OK, that's reassuring. Thanks for the clarification Dave.
Now all I have to do is port the campaign over to 1.5, playtest extensively, consider redoing from scratch the last 1/4 of the campaign, draw sprites of reasonable quality for 2 custom units, and seriously consider making the Reborns look more different to Soulless trolls. So yeah, cart before the horse. xD

[Turuk]

I wish you luck with your work, and to avoid any potential noise, I am locking this thread.

[Thrawn]

Just posting to say, perhaps coming up with a less religion-specific term than "cardinal" would most likely be wise...