Why haven't you made a campaign?

[turin]

Yeah - it is my guess that most really good stories won't translate well to Wesnoth. Take LotR - a campaign based on the plot of destroying the ring would make no sense in Wesnoth.

I'm not sure whether you mean Wesnoth the world, or Wesnoth the game.

Wesnoth the game. IMHO, Wesnoth the world is just as good as most fantasy worlds (which are fine for making good stories in, some of the time).

I thought that was obvious... I guess not.

If the latter, you'd probably have to widen the scope of that last little bit (where it was just Sam, Frodo & Gollum) to encompass nearby battles*, but I don't see why playing the basic story wouldn't be enjoyable in Wesnoth.

Not to say that I think it's a good idea ripping off the plot of LoTR whole cloth, but I don't see why it couldn't be done.

The plot of LotR doesn not translate over to a scenario-by-scenario format, or the Wesnoth game mechanics, very well. First of all, you couldn't ever recruit units, or let any of your units die (since they're all major characters). Unless you want the first scenario to not start until the middle of the third book (at Helm's Deep) - and even that wouldn't really work, since the battle at Helm's Deep lasts one night, and Wesnoth scenarios, a few days. And if you do that, you would have to have something like 20 pages of backstory.

If you expand it to include nearby battles, you wouldn't be playing a LotR campaign. You'd be playing a campaign set in Middle-Earth (which is fine, although it has copyright problems), with a few annoying units on the left side of the map that you have to move every turn.

The reason is, good stories are more RPGish than Wesnoth is.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. More character-focussed? This works fine in Wesnoth. HttT does a reasonable job of focussing on the characters, despite not being RPGish.

What I mean is that the proportion of fighting : storytelling is much lower in a story that would make a good book or movie than it is in Wesnoth. The reason is obvious; Wesnoth is a game. The focus is on gameplay.

In my experience, when you emphasize story too much in a Wesnoth campaign, it starts feeling less like a game and more like you are reading a book and taking a break every once in a while to fill in the actions of a character. It isn't enjoyable. If I want to read a good story, I'll read a book - they're usually written better.

This isn't to say that good stories don't have a place in Wesnoth. It is to say that the stories that are good in Wesnoth are not those that are good in a movie or book.

I have, except no-one seems to play it so i've lost the drive to work on it, and then finish it. It's the only non-linear campaign i know.....

Saving Elensefar?

I'll take a look at A Seed of Evil later tonight... When I played it last, it showed more promise that most other campaigns I've played. I just have little free time to play campaigns in.

[Disto]

I have, except no-one seems to play it so i've lost the drive to work on it, and then finish it. It's the only non-linear campaign i know.....

Saving Elensefar?

I'll take a look at A Seed of Evil later tonight... When I played it last, it showed more promise that most other campaigns I've played. I just have little free time to play campaigns in.

But they non-linear in different ways.... if you know what i mean.

[Tux2B]

My problem is...time

[Thrawn]

why? because it just can't happen, or nothing good enough...?

Because it can't happen. The current 4 campaigns in mainline are not the best 4 campaigns. (They are in the top 10, but they're not the top 4.)

this doesn't really answer the question.

[im the one you think of]

i did once try to make a campaign (a few months ago) it was based on how the orcs prepared to attack the kalian, (from the legend of wesmere) it was just basically the legend of wesmere from the point of view of the orcs (well one orc in particular) but i stopped for tow reasons,
1. the end was weak, because there isnt really a good way of saying "and now youve got to fight a final battle that you will lose eventually" and also people dont want to get to the end of a campaign and then see all the work go to waste
2. i couldnt do the wml, well im only 14 and im not amazing with computers just adequate, and an adequate 14 year old cant do programming, at least not at any good, sustained level.

[xtifr]

I've got a basic plot and I'm not having any troubles with dialog or WML or maps or anything like that. The primary problem I have is a lack of time to work on it, and the secondary problem I have is a lack of filler--my plot, by itself, is only enough to account for a few scenarios.

Note that most existing campaigns have a fair amount of filler. HttT really only has about six or seven scenarios that are directly required by its plot, and it's got a more-than-usually complex plot.

Of course, I could just throw in a bunch of "you're walking along when suddenly you encounter X" scenarios to serve as filler, but that sort of thing gets boring, IMO, unless you come up with something to make such scenarios interesting. And that's where I'm most stuck.

Actually, there is a third problem I'm having, but it's not as major as the others. Some of the elements of my plot involve searching for information, and it's not always easy to figure out the best way to translate that into a combat scenario, which Wesnoth scenarios pretty much always are. Once you've FOUND that person(s) you're looking for, I can have a dialog-only scenario to actually give you the information, but it's the search part that's been giving me problems.

But if I had more time, I bet I could solve both of the other problems. So a lack of time to spend on it is definitely my major problem.

(Once I get farther along, if I ever do, I suspect I'll have a new problem: figuring out how to properly balance my scenarios. This seems like a particularly tricky part--one, in fact, that a lot of existing campaign authors seem to struggle with, and I think it should have been on the poll. But I'm not far enough along for it to be a real problem yet.)

[Disto]

i did once try to make a campaign (a few months ago) it was based on how the orcs prepared to attack the kalian, (from the legend of wesmere) it was just basically the legend of wesmere from the point of view of the orcs (well one orc in particular) but i stopped for tow reasons,
1. the end was weak, because there isnt really a good way of saying "and now youve got to fight a final battle that you will lose eventually" and also people dont want to get to the end of a campaign and then see all the work go to waste
2. i couldnt do the wml, well im only 14 and im not amazing with computers just adequate, and an adequate 14 year old cant do programming, at least not at any good, sustained level.

Ahem, i'm 14. And i've made a campaign, all you need is a good knowledge of what happens in other peoples campaigns and then hacking the best which you would like and putting them into yours. All you need to do is realise what you need to change the filters too. Anyway try Campgen if your really stuck.

[ivanovic]

@xtifr
Why do you really want to have fillers? Is it not enough to have a short but good campaign? When the campaign gets too long it often is not fun to finish it. I personally do not think that the best thing to have are these "epic" campaigns. Better have short and thrilling ones.

[Ranger M]

I am also fourteen and it took me only a few days to get used to WML (although most of my first two or three scenarios were borrowed code that I adapted, but have since added to or changed). I have never done programming in my life and have a much greater understanding of windows than linux (which is what I am using), so I have had other problems along the way.

The best tip I can give you if you get stuck with some WML that doesn't work is put it on a thread on the campaign forum and ask for help (It is not shameful, I have done it a few times myself)

[irrevenant]

@xtifr
Why do you really want to have fillers? Is it not enough to have a short but good campaign? When the campaign gets too long it often is not fun to finish it. I personally do not think that the best thing to have are these "epic" campaigns. Better have short and thrilling ones.

I agree, but 2-3 scenarios (which I assume Xitfr means by 'a few') really is too short. It'd be like HttT finishing at Isle of Anduin : you wouldn't have time to build up a decent army.

Xitfr, can some of the plot points be split into multiple scenarios? eg. If you need to get information off a certain person, you could have to fight your way to their castle (scenario #1) then fight your way through the castle itself to reach them (scenario #2). "Flight to Freedom" uses this approach quite effectively.

Another idea is you could introduce a secondary plot stream - our heroes split up and you alternate between scenarios between them for a little while...

[Ravenheart]

Why?

Too much work required - i am on a very tight schedule at the moment.

[Rhuvaen]

I'm one of those who voted "can't think of a good plot line". That's not entirely correct though: I think I can come up with a couple, but I don't think I would like to stick with one throughout an effort as big as making one's own campaign!

What makes me tick and have a go at WML is trying out new things. I think there's so many ways of playing BfW that just haven't been discovered yet ! Those one-shot multiplayer scenarios are great for that, although I rarely if ever play multiplayer these days (and there my incentive crumbles to dust...).

My take on a campaign is that gameplay comes first, plot comes second. In HttT we are rewarded, after many scenarios of seemingly unrelated battles, that there is actually a meaningful plot and that the protagonists have more life in them than we credited them for. It's just the right amount of plot to string together a range of very different scenarios. Every time things look like they're falling into a rut, the plot comes in and adds a twist.

My guess is that what's really important to gameplay in a campaign is the "economic" design: it's like the rise and fall of a melody. Scenarios can be of several types: in some you should spend your gold freely to build troops and make them more experienced; in others you race against time to gain as much gold as you can; or you have to conserve whatever resources you have throughout a few scenarios; and some are real bleeders that test what you've got to throw in. At least that's what it seems like to me from a campaign player's perspective (authors might want to share their ideas). The plot I guess should not stand in the way of all this...

I'd like to try a campaign that...
- is more conservative with retained gold (but having reduced-cost recalls to make up for it)
- has entirely different ways for rewarding you with gold depending on your achievement of overall objectives
- offers choices earlier in the game (besides recruitment) that affect later scenarios

As an example, I was thinking about a campaign slightly based on "In 80 days around the world" where the protagonist's main enemy is time (and a competitor). At several intervalls you get to see how you're doing timewise and against your competitor. The idea is to not have a time-limit on scenarios (at least not where it's not absolutely necessary), but conserving time is part of the underlying objective. The player would be quite limited in resources and there would be a few possibilities of "detours" (i.e. helping others along the way) for gaining gold and new friends.

Another thing I'd like to do is a random campaign with a real finish. It'd have a generic plot with a quite few random parameters. It would be an interesting exploration into how the workings of a campaign can be deconstructed into its elements and then put together again randomly.

But, as with the "80 days" idea above, time is my enemy ...

[Elvish_Pillager]

Other: Made two already (by the way - bug me about getting Ilayin updated) and made several false starts too unfortunately

[Neoriceisgood]

I don't know how to design custom graphics

[Thrawn]

I don't know how to design custom graphics

sniff, poor you