How to save Wesnoth

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UngeheuerLich
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How to save Wesnoth

Post by UngeheuerLich »

Thank you for creating Wesnoth. I had a lot of fun playing it.

Why I more or less stopped playing:
Wesnoth became static. While maps are upgraded regularly, play balance is stale for many versions now. Although the races are quite balanced, the tactics are more or less the same all the time. Successful games, like Dota and so on are changing the balance slightly all the time. Always bringing a breath of fresh air into the game. Making it exciting again.

Just my 2 cent.

I was once willing to spend time balancing units, but developers didn´t listen, instead having not done anything regarding balance for years now. And still I am regularly looking for some updates.
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Ravana
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by Ravana »

Wesnoth became static. While maps are upgraded regularly, play balance is stale for many versions now. Although the races are quite balanced, the tactics are more or less the same all the time. Successful games, like Dota and so on are changing the balance slightly all the time. Always bringing a breath of fresh air into the game. Making it exciting again.
That is what addons are for. I feel the core factions are introduction, to understand how game works. Wesnoth is more than just what is included in the original download.
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Telchin
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by Telchin »

First, I'm not sure if comparison with MOBA games is valid as they are primarily (if not exclusively) multiplayer oriented, while Wesnoth originated as a singleplayer game (David White wanted to make a game that would be easy to make a competent AI for). Many primarily singleplayer games (and probably even some multiplayer-focused ones) are released, then get few patches/DLCs/expansions and then the creator move to the next project. From this point of view Wesnoth's development is actually decently paced. (And of course there are the add-ons already mentioned by Ravana)
Second, Wesnoth development is probably understaffed (as seen in the recent anouncement), so its developers couldn't produce content faster even if they wanted.
UngeheuerLich
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by UngeheuerLich »

For the casual gamer, core factions is the goto. Multiplayer an single player.
I used to play that game a lot. The new Kalifate are a breath of fresh air.
I don´t want to complain, but explain, why I believe wesnoth lost some attractiveness.
12 years are a lot. Most games are dead before then.
But looking at starcraft 1 or war craft 3... we still have balance patches. And in my opinion this makes a game fresher.
Instead we get other patches. Better graphics etc. which is great. But for mr it does not make me want to play that game again.

The core experience must be the main focus and maybe the gameplay needs some overhaul. It may be an alternate build (ptr), that focusses on balance instead of underlying program structure.
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max_torch
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by max_torch »

Yeah but starcraft and warcraft and even world of warcraft had expansions also which increased the life.
In the same way expanding features of wesnoth can also have a role.
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Slann
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by Slann »

I think we can agree that ui fixes and ai improvements will not affect how the players experience the game. As max and ungeheuerlich says, once the game has nothing new to provide, people will stop caring to play it. You can still play from time to time, but what makes the community grow or stable is to provide new things.

If developers feel like there is no need to add anything new to Wesnoth, maybe we should just accept that the game popularity will decline over time, it is be to expected.

Also, as i argued in another thread, maybe a new BoW would attract new developers. People like to contribute to something that is new and leaves space to creativity. Maintaining an old game is not as atractive.
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Xudo
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by Xudo »

Have you tried to download any add-on?
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max_torch
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by max_torch »

Hmmm ur right xudo... there are already so many add ons that give flavor and new experience beyond the core game that really extend replayability of the game. So if that still isn't enough to give a user a 'new' experience beyond the core game, then what is (enough to save wesnoth)?
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Slann
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by Slann »

beyond the core game
But not too far away.
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tekelili
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by tekelili »

UngeheuerLich wrote:Thank you for creating Wesnoth. I had a lot of fun playing it.

Why I more or less stopped playing:
Wesnoth became static. While maps are upgraded regularly, play balance is stale for many versions now. Although the races are quite balanced, the tactics are more or less the same all the time. Successful games, like Dota and so on are changing the balance slightly all the time. Always bringing a breath of fresh air into the game. Making it exciting again.

Just my 2 cent.

I was once willing to spend time balancing units, but developers didn´t listen, instead having not done anything regarding balance for years now. And still I am regularly looking for some updates.
It is a little embarrashing answering promoting my own add on... but man: quite unfair for me read "balance is staled" and complain about of lack "a breath of fresh air into the game" after create 9 new factions to balance default era for cooperative campaign enverioment. If you count World Conquest as part of BfW experience then you will conclude BfW is still getting fresh things added. If you never played World Conquest then still you have a lot to discover about BfW.
Be aware English is not my first language and I could have explained bad myself using wrong or just invented words.
World Conquest II
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Pentarctagon
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by Pentarctagon »

While I agree that add-ons really help keep the game interesting, there's the rather significant problem that finding the really good add-ons is not exactly the simplest thing in the world. Filtering by type and looking at download count helps to some degree, but it doesn't seem like the ideal solution.
99 little bugs in the code, 99 little bugs
take one down, patch it around
-2,147,483,648 little bugs in the code
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tekelili
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by tekelili »

Pentarctagon wrote:While I agree that add-ons really help keep the game interesting, there's the rather significant problem that finding the really good add-ons is not exactly the simplest thing in the world. Filtering by type and looking at download count helps to some degree, but it doesn't seem like the ideal solution.
I am totally agree, however I think that problem is mostly players comunity bad. Games like Minecraft have an amount of info in Wiki that greatly surpass one supplied by developers. However, taking a look about how many BfW players took a while to write a comment in the UMC guide, I wouldnt say BfW players comunity is very proactive :cry:
Be aware English is not my first language and I could have explained bad myself using wrong or just invented words.
World Conquest II
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pe_em
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by pe_em »

Pentarctagon wrote:While I agree that add-ons really help keep the game interesting, there's the rather significant problem that finding the really good add-ons is not exactly the simplest thing in the world. Filtering by type and looking at download count helps to some degree, but it doesn't seem like the ideal solution.
Maybe you should add something like a mark: "Recommended by Wesnoth Team" or implement add-ons rating system.
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Pentarctagon
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by Pentarctagon »

pe_em wrote:Maybe you should add something like a mark: "Recommended by Wesnoth Team" or implement add-ons rating system.
The add-on rating system has been suggested before, but hasn't been implemented due to a lack of people willing to code/maintain it and concerns over people trying to game the system to make their add-on more highly rated than it should be.
99 little bugs in the code, 99 little bugs
take one down, patch it around
-2,147,483,648 little bugs in the code
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Slann
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Re: How to save Wesnoth

Post by Slann »

I think it's a bad sign to complain about players/community members. It usually means something you cannot change. Addons supply more fun, but what makes people play the game is the core. For every addon out there, some will like it and some not, but it is fair to say that, if you took the time to see what addons can offer you, is because first you enjoyed the core game.
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