Sceptre of Life, version 0.12.1

[opensourcejunkie]

Okay, I've got scenario 8 rewritten - mostly. I may change a little dialogue to acknowledge the second leader guarding the western bridge. Also, I haven't tested it as thoroughly as I'd like, so I'll have to play through it a couple times more. But, overall, scenario 8 should be closer to what it needs to be.

For anyone who's interested, I did manage to defeat the second leader without taking Krax, but it was with heavy losses. I don't think I could have defeated the other leader as well.

If anyone plays through it, let me know how things turn out. Thanks!
--OSJ


to do:
- in scenario 5, apply solsword's ai retreat code
- expand the graveyard in scenario 6
- remove non-alphanumeric characters from all variables
+ remove banishment ritual in scenario 7
+ fix map in scenario 7 to force player across the ice bridge
+ revamp scenario 8
+ make fog clearers more invisible in scenario 8
+ add a couple turns in scenario 9



EDIT: @Solsword :: I played around with your suggestion for the fog clearers - putting them on another side, and sharing the view. As it turns out, even on an allied side, their orbs && hp bars still show up. Also, the fog clearing wasn't happening at the right time, so I reverted back to my original method. Thanks anyway for the suggestion, though!

EDIT: When I tried to upload, it was ridiculously slow, and I got the message "remote host disconnected". I don't know if the problem is on my end, or on the server's end, but I'll try to upload it tomorrow.

EDIT: I tried uploading it again; worked this time.

[CMaster]

There seems to have been a real problem with the UMC-Server: It showed only 6 add-ons when I tried to download SoL, and SoL was not among them.
Would be great, if you could upload it again...

[opensourcejunkie]

uh-oh; that's not good; I'll get right on that.

[Turuk]

There seems to have been a real problem with the UMC-Server: It showed only 6 add-ons when I tried to download SoL, and SoL was not among them.
Would be great, if you could upload it again...

The 1.5 add-on server was wiped, it is not fault of the authors, so many of the add-ons will be missing until they can find a moment to upload their content again.

[opensourcejunkie]

I finished the preliminary map for Scenario(s) 11 (and 13); attached is a screenshot && map file. As always, I appreciate any feedback/revisions on it.

Thanks!
--OSJ

[CMaster]

Just tested Ulbridge once again, and it looks good. Those trolls are very effective in stopping any hard and fast attack, and the increased number of orcs allows their unlimited gold to take its effect. I don't think it's possible to win without overrunning Krax anymore.

The change in the orcish AI is quite visible too, giving the player a good feedback for taking Krax. I still think however, that a little dialog would add to the gameplay.

The flag you use to signal wether the player owns Krax changes back to grey when the orcs recapture a single vilage of Krax. Is this intentional? It just feels a bit wierd and makes the player wonder, wether he still has the advantage of having overrun Krax. I think it would be better if it stayed red until the orcs have recaptured all the five villages.

Good work!

[opensourcejunkie]

Thanks!

Yeah, I ripped the code for the flag (and other things) from an Era I wrote called the Wrisk Era. (Wrisk mimics the rules of the board game RISK, so controlling all villages is required in order to control a region.) That's why it goes gray after one village loss. But you make a good point, and this is SoL not Wrisk, so I'll change that up. Good call.

The change in the orcish AI is quite visible too, giving the player a good feedback for taking Krax. I still think however, that a little dialog would add to the gameplay.

Yeah, I hear ya; dialogue would be nice. My difficulty is that if the orcish leader is under fog (which he almost assuredly is at that point), then the message will pop up without focusing on a speaker, which feels kinda disconnected to me. It's the first time that you see the orcish leader speak; some players might not even make the connection that he's the leader.

Of course, I could make some dialogue on the player's side something like "Okay, now that we've taken Krax the orcs should be on their way, etc." Do you think that would be enough?

Thanks for playing,
--OSJ


to do:
- in scenario 5, apply solsword's ai retreat code
- expand the graveyard in scenario 6
- remove non-alphanumeric characters from all variables
- in scenario 8, change the visual message of the flag
- in scenario 8, add some dialogue after Krax is first taken

[CMaster]

Looks like I've got to check out the Wrisk Era

I confess, I didn't think about the fog at all. That added dialog is certainly not neccessary, especially when the flag is fixed.

I was thinking along these lines:
Kurgan: Ullin, move your fat lazy ass up here, there are elves in Krax!
Ullin: Elves? Me thought, we was smashing humans...
Kurgan: Forget the humans, stop those elves attacking our backs!
Ullin: *growls* Orcs difficult allies - Ullin do this, Ullin do that, Ullin never gets to finish what he starts!

I don't think, this would confuse players, there are unseen people speaking in other campaigns as well, after all. But it is always strange to hear someone talk, who can't even be seen. So perhaps it's not that bad to have no dialog at all. A pure elvish dialog would notify the player, that an event has been triggered, but nothing more. And the flag already does that job quite neatly.

[opensourcejunkie]

Hey, I really like that dialogue; mind if I rip it off you, word for word (minus a few more choice words :-)? I think I might have a way to implement it so that it works well even with the fog.

Looks like I've got to check out the Wrisk Era :D

Well, I only have it for 1.4, and I probably won't bother porting it to 1.5; I don't think anyone really plays it. It was a good exercise in WML though :-).

--OSJ

[CMaster]

Hey, I really like that dialogue; mind if I rip it off you, word for word (minus a few more choice words ?

Feel free!

[opensourcejunkie]

cool, tx

[opensourcejunkie]

Okay, the latest bugfix release (1.10.3) is a big one; I (think I) fixed the save file problem; I'll be playing through SoL over the next couple days to test it. Unfortunately, the changes will invalidate old save files (they may load, but some scenarios won't work properly), so when I finish playing through, I'll post an updated savepack.

That changes I made may end up generating a bunch of smaller errors, so if you notice something while playing through, please let me know. Of particular note, you may find some dialogue/objectives which use underscores between certain words instead of spaces. Let me know, of anything like that so I can fix it.

Thanks for playing!
--OSJ

[opensourcejunkie]

0.10.4 is out; I edited all the maps to include the 1.6rc2 terrain. I hear that SoL has a few bugs when playing on 1.6, so I've gotta play through it (again) and see if I can't spot them myself. Next on the agenda after that is scenario 11.
--OSJ

[CMaster]

Just found two bugs:

scenario 6: Jessica, General Tragen and the pack of outlaws who kill Eliana make it onto the recall list.

scenario 7: Capturing the village at 15,16 trigers the win event (without ever seeing the ice bridge work).

[opensourcejunkie]

Good catch, thanks. I fixed the second bug, but wasn't able to replicate the first one. What version of wesnoth are you using?

EDIT: Interestingly enough, in scenario 8 (not 7), those units from sc. 6 popped up. I fixed it, killing off all units from sc. 6.

EDIT: I've got a 1.6 savepack complete; it's attached below.