Sceptre of Life, version 0.12.1

[CMaster]

Maybe, the first bug had something to do with the loading of an autosave game. I noticed it after I started from an autosave, not a save from a scenario start, so this might be the reason, why you couldn't replicate it. I got suspicious of the autosaves, after I loaded from an autosave once more, and suddenly had two Jessicas, two Generals and so on on my recall list.

I'm using SoL Version 0.10.4 and Wesnoth 1.5.12 by the way.

[opensourcejunkie]

wait - is the bug still happening? The version of SoL on the server should be fixed.

[CMaster]

No, it's not happening anymore. Just checked it out again and retested. No chance of getting Jessica anymore

[opensourcejunkie]

awesome, tx

[joshudson]

I started playing this campaign and stopped after the first scenario.

At the beginning, my sister is a mage, and wants to fry orcs, and I tell her to stay in the castle. Given the current situation, the best way to keep her safe is to put her on the battlefield. And at the end of the first scenario, to find out she was somehow killed, that did it for me. I quit at that point.

[opensourcejunkie]

I started playing this campaign and stopped after the first scenario.

At the beginning, my sister is a mage, and wants to fry orcs, and I tell her to stay in the castle. Given the current situation, the best way to keep her safe is to put her on the battlefield. And at the end of the first scenario, to find out she was somehow killed, that did it for me. I quit at that point.

Well, I'm sorry to hear that :-/. Hope you find a campaign that better suits your wishes! :-).
--OSJ

[zoggop]

because you've required so rigorously that the story be compelling... i have to say that beginning the story by alluding to the way the sceptre of fire is "intricately woven through our history - that of wesnoth" sounds a great deal like the ambitions of story's author than the voice of a intradiegetic narrator. i think that what is desired is a narrator who creates a sense of mystery rather than speaking from a god's-eye-view of the sceptre's place in the entirety of the history of wesnoth. but um, i'm not exactly full of any constructive ideas.

[opensourcejunkie]

because you've required so rigorously that the story be compelling... i have to say that beginning the story by alluding to the way the sceptre of fire is "intricately woven through our history - that of wesnoth" sounds a great deal like the ambitions of story's author than the voice of a intradiegetic narrator. i think that what is desired is a narrator who creates a sense of mystery rather than speaking from a god's-eye-view of the sceptre's place in the entirety of the history of wesnoth. but um, i'm not exactly full of any constructive ideas.

Hey, thanks for pointing that out. I'm afraid that this has been my first encounter with studying diegesis (I had to look up the word "intradiegetic" before I could understand your post ;-), but I think I have a handle on what you're saying.

Basically, if I understand you correctly, your saying that the phrase "intricately woven through our history - that of wesnoth" seems to present more of a "God's-eye view" than the view of a narrator who is himself involved with the story. If that is what you're saying (and I'm still not completely sure that it is :-), then I see your point, but I'm not sure that I agree.

So that we're on the same page, I'll quickly give you the backstory of the narrator:

Spoiler:

Basically, this story is told by Smyrna, who appears in the first few scenarios, and will reappear later. At the time of the events of the campaign, he's a messenger in the army of wesnoth. However, because Smyrna begins to act on his own accord (like Aeryn), Derril fires him from the army. At that point, he becomes a historian of Wesnoth, and eventually writes this account, relying heavily on a journal that Aeryn gives him in the final scenario.

So, when the narrator claims that the Sceptre is "intricately woven through our history - that of wesnoth", I don't mean it to sound like an extradiegetic narrator (although granted, it certainly does sound that way, now that you mention it). Rather, I do mean to present a narrator who, as a historian of the Crown, courageously opposes the Crown by recounting the truth of events that could prove embarrassing for the king.

I don't know if that fully rectifies the deficiency you pointed out, so let me know if you can think of any way to improve the narration here, or elsewhere for that matter. Because yeah, I want this storyline to be pristine :-). Thanks for helping to buff it up,
--OSJ

[zoggop]

Haha! I love that the narrator is a part of the campaign/story. I haven't played far enough

In retrospect I think what bothers me about "intricately woven through our history - that of Wesnoth" is that it reads like the sceptre is only textually a part of historical documents. Maybe that's what you want. But isn't Smyrna suppose to harbor a passionate conviction that the sceptre really is deeply involved, even at the center of, real events in the past? The tension could be increased between Smyrna as a historian obsessed with texts (which also emphasizes that the story he tells is written to justify and aggrandize himself as well as undermine the Crown's narrative, political, and military authority) and Smyrna as a former soldier who has a real story to tell. Maybe he could say something like "The Sceptre of Life has passed unnoticed through battles which have decided the fate of kings and countries. This can be read in account after account, none of which have anything to say about the Sceptre other than to note its existence. Yet it has been the very source of power, persistently denied by its bearers, throughout history." I have no idea if that fits into what is said during the rest of the campaign. I'm also not sure if the above will hook instead of bore readers. Boring me was my problem with the first paragraph of the campaign... but then I generally just click through campaign text because usually the writing is so atrocious.

[opensourcejunkie]

I have to say, I really like your idea of increasing the tension between Smyrna's "historian" and his "soldier" tendencies; I think that the narration could probably reflect this in other scenarios as well; I'll have to go through the campaign and capitalize on that.

There is a difficulty I face in drastically changing the first two paragraphs of the campaign, however. My problem is that I quote them in the last scenario, during a brother vs. brother duel:

Code: Select all

[message]
    speaker=narrator
    message= _ "Much has been recorded regarding the Sceptre of Fire, and the intricate way it is woven through our history - that of Wesnoth. For as long as history can recall, men have fought over this means to power; many such men, having obtained it, were eventually corrupted by it."
[/message]
[message]
    speaker=Derril
    message= _ "Give me that Sceptre, Aeryn!  If you do not return it, then your life will be forfeit!"
[/message]

## Derril takes a swing at Aeryn

[message]
    speaker=narrator
    message= _ "Yet little is said of the Sceptre of Life, an artifact which saved a fallen kingdom, and not a few fallen men. Many historians of the Crown prefer not to mention it at all - perhaps for fear of embarrassing the Crown - nonetheless for history's sake, and for Aeryn's, I am compelled to recount its tale."
[/message]
[message]
    speaker=Aeryn
    message= _ "Then it is forfeit, brother.  The fate of this Isle, and the life of Irdya itself demands that the Sceptre remain here."
[/message]

## takes a swing back at Derril

The reason I quote it in the final showdown was because I want to bring the player's mind back to the opening scenario, to give the campaign a sort of cyclic feel. Moreover, a lot of formerly unanswered questions (What kingdom was saved by the Sceptre? Why would the Crown be embarrassed by this story? What sort of trouble is Aeryn in?) have now been answered (The Green Isle in the kingdom that's been revived. The Crown would be embarrassed because they're trying to fight against the gods. Aeryn's in trouble with the Crown because he decided to help the woman who stole the Sceptre), and it would be nice to remind the player of those questions in the first place.

So it's important that the first two paragraphs of the campaign remain structurally the same (i.e. I need the final line of the first paragraph to allude to the corruption that the Sceptre of Fire brings, so that it can be tied to Derril's own corruption. Also, the second paragraph needs to keep its final line as well as a reference to the fallen kingdom.). However, there is some wiggle room here, so we can definitely work on changing it.

Here is a very rough draft on those first two paragraphs; they definitely need more work, but I thought I'd run them by you first

Code: Select all

        [part]
            story= _ "Much has been recorded regarding the Sceptre of Fire, and the intricate way it is woven through our history - that of Wesnoth. As history recalls, and as recent events have made me witness, men have continually fought over this means to power; many such men, having obtained it, were eventually corrupted by it."
        [/part]
        [part]
            story= _ "Yet little is said of the Sceptre of Life, an artifact which saved a fallen kingdom, and not a few fallen men. Many historians of the Crown prefer not to mention it at all - perhaps for fear of embarrassing the Crown - nonetheless for history's sake, and for Aeryn's, I am compelled to recount its tale."
        [/part]

Thanks again for helping to improve this,
--OSJ

[opensourcejunkie]

Okay, SoL version 0.11.0 is up on the server; it includes the next scenario (scenario 11) as well as some minor improvements to scenario 8, including CMaster's dialogue (slightly revised). Attached is an updated savepack.

--OSJ

[Exia]

Hi, I've played this campaign before, and when i played the newest scenario (11), i had to debug my way through a few since i didnt feel like playing the whole jolly campaign again. Anyway, i just got Aeryn to AMLA, and i saw the upgrade choices, and i thought it would be nice for there to be a choice to up his healing abilities, since he is supposed to be a doctor, maybe a choice so that he would have +10 heal or more? just my thoughts anyway since he is rather weak in other areas.

[CMaster]

Good job on scenario 11!

The plot is as perfect as ever and the fight is a nice tactical exercise, actually forcing the player to use the ambush ability of the woses.

But there was one weird thing:
I felt cheated when I first triggered the woses to appear. Why? Because I was warned by the hint in the objectives, that something bad would happen, when I came near an orc. But something good happened. And I felt like I had not been able to play my cards right, because I had been tricked into believing something wrong. (Which was absolute nonsense, by the way, my tactics on the first try were simply abysmal!)

So I think, it would be better, not to have that warning in the scenario objectives, since it just confuses the player.

[Exia]

i also agree with CMaster as i was expecting to assassinate the leader somehow with poison maybe, but if you take that warning out, they might think that they will immediately start recruiting so i think you should put something like: The Enemy Will See You When You are 6 Steps Away, and maybe instead of the moment they see you, i think it should be after the first turn that Aeryn meets the woses or something like that so the player will not be completely messed up

[opensourcejunkie]

Hey, thanks for the feedback! Sorry it took a while to respond; I was off of wesnoth this past week, and just got back on.

Hi, I've played this campaign before, and when i played the newest scenario (11), i had to debug my way through a few since i didnt feel like playing the whole jolly campaign again.

Yeah, I know the feeling :-/. In case you haven't run across it, I maintain a savepack containing working savefiles that can be used to skip to any scenario in the campaign. If you need it in the future, you can download it from the first post in this thread.

Anyway, i just got Aeryn to AMLA, and i saw the upgrade choices, and i thought it would be nice for there to be a choice to up his healing abilities, since he is supposed to be a doctor, maybe a choice so that he would have +10 heal or more? just my thoughts anyway since he is rather weak in other areas.

Good call; I took out "Steadfast Runes" (too random of an upgrade) and replaced it with your suggestion. IIRC however, it won't register in Aeryn in any of the saves, because it's a change to the unit, not to the scenario. so, if you want to see it in action, you'll have to debug your way through again ;-).

Good job on scenario 11!

The plot is as perfect as ever and the fight is a nice tactical exercise, actually forcing the player to use the ambush ability of the woses.

Thanks :-). Actually, I wasn't too sold on Aeryn's dialogue on this one, so I modified a bit in Scenarios 10 && 11 to make it work better. Just rounding off rough edges, though.

But there was one weird thing:
I felt cheated when I first triggered the woses to appear. Why? Because I was warned by the hint in the objectives, that something bad would happen, when I came near an orc. But something good happened. And I felt like I had not been able to play my cards right, because I had been tricked into believing something wrong. (Which was absolute nonsense, by the way, my tactics on the first try were simply abysmal!)

So I think, it would be better, not to have that warning in the scenario objectives, since it just confuses the player.

(sighs): Yeah, this is a pretty glaring flaw in the scenario from a gameplay perspective. The original intent was to make the player feel some of the helplessness that Aeryn might feel at facing an entire army with one unit. Unfortunately, it can turn out to be one big tomato surprise, since once you know about the Wose, you just head straight for the nearest clearing.

I tried to mitigate the tomatoishness a bit by setting the clock to 12 turns no matter how many turns you spent wandering in the forest, and by placing Wose units near any entrance to Dur Ullum that a player might take. That way, even if he ends up at one of the northern bridges, the Wose units stationed there can cover his retreat, if need be.

At any rate, I did change the hint to the following text: "When Aeryn moves within 6 hexes of an enemy, Nia 'Kelan will become aware of his presence." I was tempted to take CMaster's suggestion, and completely remove the hint altogether. The only downside to that is that the player won't know why the enemy isn't recruiting from turn 1.

Perhaps I could change the hint to something like, "Nia 'Kelan is initially unaware of Aeryn's presence", not giving the player any kind of idea about the six hex issue, etc. That way, the average player will, even if he's following the eastern path northward, trigger the beginning of the battle while he's still fairly close to the main Wose forces. What do you guys think?

Thanks again for the feedback,
--OSJ

Edit: Oh, there is another change that should show up in this bugfix. I made a serious renovation to the Wose Shaman unit (now line) that deviates from the standard shaman definition. Basically, I changed the shaman's level to 1, downing his power a little, then added a level 2 unit called the "Wose Cloudcease", and a level 3 "Illumian Wose".

The inspiration for the change came, oddly enough, from my brother, who happens to be avidly antagonistic toward wesnoth (*rolls his eyes*). Comparing the Wose to Bulbasaur from Pokemon, he asked why the Shaman didn't have an attack like solar beam. After initially dismissing the idea, I warmed to it, and morphed some code from the White Mage to fit with the Wose Cloudcease and Illumian. I guess in my mind, it makes sense that a unit who can absorb sunlight might be able to turn that sunlight into an attack as well.

The major motivating factor in giving "solar" to the wose came from the fact that even though Wose defend well in forest terrain, they aren't able to attack very well in forest terrain. They generally have few attacks (fewer chances to hit), and are fighting in a terrain that defends almost any enemy fairly well. So, I thought it only fair that the wose should have some magical attack with an automatic 70% chance to hit.

I tried to balance the Shaman line against the (normal) Wose line by guesstimation, but I'm sure it'll need further revision. Let me know if anyone is under/overpowered in any way.