Tying it all together

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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markm
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Tying it all together

Post by markm »

I thought it would be nice to tie the campaigns together in some way(s) for more continuity and so that all the work a player puts in building a set of veterans throughout a long campaign doesn't have to 'go to waste'. Thus I created "Between the Worlds", a portmanteau campaign in which you get to choose between various characters to play. Currently you can choose Tourist Fighter, Tourist Fighteress, Prince Konrad or Princess Li'sar.

I had finished "Heir to the Throne" and was disappointed that it is just a dead end, no option to continue on through history.

It seemed to me that one of the potential benefits of the technology of 'scenarios' and 'campaigns' is that they constrain timelines to ensure continuity is possible.

If an argument against this is "players will accumulate too many high level units and/or too many loyal units" then maybe some new 'conditions' could be implemented, not just the standard 'this unit must not die' and 'kill this that or the other enemy unit' but also maybe stuff like 'no more than X number of high level / loyal units can survive'.

-MarkM-
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by zookeeper »

Whatever.
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by Mica »

Um...

...

:lol2: :lol2:

[edit]

Okay okay, let me specify what I think is funny.

Number one.
Campaigns are supposed to have an end. Whether it be an ending like DiD where YOU choose how long it goes on for, or an ending like HttT (a basic ending).

Number two.
Where the heck does... "a Tourist brought through time by the Grand Illusionist" come from? Seriously, it makes no sense. There are no tourists and there are no Grand Illusionists.

Number three.
Wesnoth's history isn't _completely_ written. There are many years missing, and it's not supposed to be one continuous campaign.

Number four.
This isn't a good idea in my opinion because some people don't want to play one extremely long campaign.

[/edit]
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by Velensk »

I agree with mica/zookeeper on all accounts mentioned. To add my own comments:

Firstly: If you feel like your time was wasted building up forces to have them retire at the end of a campain, then you shouldn't play campains. The campains arn't designed to be played the way you propose, and only extensive modifications (to both gameplay and story) that wouldn't make any sense (like combineing Under the Burning Sun with Dune stuff), could change that.

Secondly: tourist/grand illusionist thing, doing things this way would imply that the entire world is an illusion, because otherwise, the fact that the grand illusionist can manipulate about anything makes no sense to me. I don't know if I speak for anything else, but aside from breaking the forth wall/making things easier for the player, I prefer my games to not jump up and tell me they are illusions.

Thirdly: if you really want to do this, none can stop you, but don't expect anyone to help you. You could probably make a good deal of it from copieing and pasting. However if you don't make it good, then none will want to play it, especialy since it will be redicuasly long (and from the impression you give me, convuluted).
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by turin »

Uh, yeah... so... no? :?
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by Octavius »

What I'm thinking is that perhaps if you're creating more than one campaigns in which one continues to the next, you could include 'veteran' level 2 or 3 units that, in the plot, has taken part in the previous campaign before, but were never there.

It is more or less the illusion of our flawed memory. Most of us don't have photographic memory, and we don't remember the names of all the units we command. So we could easily put in some veterans and pass them off as actual veterans.

Another way is to put in 'veteran' units and write that they were involved in the previous campaign, but not in the scenarios the players played. Which means, the units were involved off-map, perhaps as rear guards, scouts or vanguards who work in the background.

Yet another way is to put in main characters who were really involved. That can never go wrong. It was done many times before. Kalenz is an elven lord used thus far in Heir to the throne and The South Guard, and used once or twice in unofficial add-on campaigns.

So far, there are no macros to bring in real actual units from one campaign to another. Unless there's one way to actually store data for use in the entire game.
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by markm »

My "Between the Worlds" campaign started as simply a total copy of Heir to the Throne, transported into user-diskspace, with so far a few changes of name, details, and dialogue of a few of the characters.

In order to provide the player a choice of characters to play, I also grabbed the first scenario of the tutorial and hacked that, offering the player four character options so far: you can play Tourist Fighter, Tourist Fighteress, Princess Konrad or Princess Li'sar. (Planned additions are Wesnothian Squire and Wesnothian Knight, hopefully coming soon but maybe not if the other characters timelines development proves more interesting and popular to pursue.)

I maybe haven't been as strict about "minimum necessary change" as are, by policy, the agents of Eternity in Isaac Asimov's "The End of Eternity", but, so far, I have not actually changed much.

-MarkM-
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by markm »

In developing my scenarios I have noticed that not all scenarios seem to take account of the time already expended in previous scenarios. One of my scenarios has you sticking around with the elves for some time, meanwhile in the port scenario a boat is scheduled to arrive. Luckily nothing is on record yet regarding how long until another boat comes along or how often such boats come along, but still, noticing this has made me start wondering about time synchronisation throughout a campaign.

The advantage of a "mere tour" such as my campaign presently purports to be offering to "Tourists" is that potentially there need not be much time pressure over all, as in how many turns can the entire campaign take before the Tourist will be declared dead back in his world of origin and find, like Bilbo or Frodo Baggins, that things have been happening at home while he was off adventuring.

It also brought to mind Phillip Jose Farmer's alternative around the world in eighty days novel, in which he writes around the Jules Verne novel filling in outre behind-the-scenes goings-on that, in Verne's novel, aren't apparent. In essence Farmer wrote new scenarios that adjoined Verne's scenarios while fitting precisely into the timetable set down by Verne's novel.

I think I shall try to aim at keeping track of time quite carefully across the entire campaign. Potentially that could help maximise the number of opportunities to include some multi-player interaction along the way.

Part of why I provide multiple entry-points into the campaign is in order to be able to weave together various plot-lines in such a way that multiple players entering from multiple entry-points could have effects on each other's plotlines even if they never actually "meet" in any of the scenarios.

An initial stab at an idea how this could be implemented is to have points in the plots at which if you choose to play the campaign in synchrony with other players you tell your copy what your chosen other players accomplished while you were on some other branch and that affects the state of the scenario you then proceed into. Meanwhile if they wish they tell their copy what their chosen other players accomplished.

A possible literary device for presenting this, it seems to me, might be to have you send units off to do things then later get to pick what they actually ended up doing. Quite likely if you send a unit off to accomplish mission X and are later asked whether it accomplished mission X you will tend to claim that it did, I am guessing. Therefore I plan to actually ask a more tempting question, such as "Your unit sent to accomplish mission X lucked into a chance to actually-but-instead accomplish tempting-alternative Y. Knowing that unit so well, go ahead and guess which choice the unit picked?" Then offer not only alternatives X and Y but also the weird-to-some options of "neither" and "neither: they died trying!"

These "neither" options might well seem weird to someone who is not thinking in terms of multi-player campaigns. But for the player who is trying to collaborate with friend(s) who are playing alternate plotlines, as different characters, from different starting-points (different at least inasmuch as they are a different character), those are the options in which you get to allow your friend(s) to gain or accomplish whatever your unit had been sent to gain or accomplish.

For example, you send a unit to go get some griffon eggs. Your friend isn't sending someone to do that, your friend is on a plotline in which they themselves plan to get some griffon eggs. Your unit joins up with your friend as an encountered friendly unit during their griffon egg finding scenario. They might lose that unit, or they might chose to let it have some eggs to bring back to you...

-MarkM-
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by markm »

Between the Worlds - a campaign involving the existence of worlds other than the world of Wesnoth.

Scenario 00a Who are you?

This scenario, which I am hacking the tutorial to try to create, allows you to select whether you are Tourist or Royalty, male or female.

The 01 series of scenarios are scenarios set on the first map used by this campaign, which is the map Konrad started on in Heir to the Throne.

Scenario 01a Arrival in Wesnoth

I have reached a point at which it is going to take some pretty thorough playing-out of alternatives in order to determine whether they are too easy, too hard, or - such as in the cases of the various combinations of precisely who died and who lived, which interact to determine the dialogues about who is being mourned and who is still alive to mourn them and so on - run into some obscure bug in the WML.

That is, I have not actually tried every combination of who lives and who dies to check that in every case all the dialogue about it comes out correctly.

Scenario 01b Diplomacy

If you run out of turns in 01a you end up here for now, but it is intended that when 01c is written you will end up in 01c instead. Also if you kill all enemy leaders in 01a you also end up here, which is how you are intended to get here because it is intended that this scenario is or contains your 'reward' for defeating all the enemy leaders. So far it seems likely that the orcs/goblins squawked to someone about your presence, because a Wesnothian Knight and a Wesnothian Squire have come to investigate rumours of visitors - or was that invaders - from another world.

They and the Elves get into a dialogue, the Grand Illusionist says they could keep that up all day but to notice these Elves are friends they aren't about to betray you or anything. Turn two though the humans have started recruiting troops. They are still shown as if they are enemies. Hmm. The elves though have also recruited troops. Hmm. Did you or will you start recruiting too or stay unobtrusive waiting to see how the continued dialogue proceeds? The dialogue so far has not been particularly hostile, but why are they all showing off their troops all of a sudden? (Game-mechanics reason: "AI players do that. I haven't tampered with that aspect yet...")

You can still get to '02a Blackwater Port Tour' by getting Tourist to the signpost in the northwest, other than that conditions are normal: you lose if turns run out or your crown-wearing units die.

The entire panoply of who grieves who under which combinations of who lived and who died is in this one too, hopefully if it turns out to all work correctly in 01a it will also work correctly in this scenario.

Scenario 01c Of boats and golden apples

This scenario is planned to be what happens if you don't kill all enemy leaders in scenario 01a. The Knight and Squire of 01b don't show up. No goblins/orcs invade. Maybe this time you might be able to make it to the signpost before turns run out? ;)

The 02 series of scenarios take place on the Blackwater Port map from Heir to the Throne.

Scenario 02b Blackwater Port Tour

A descendant-and-namesake of Haldiel wishes to join you on your tour of the historic journey his ancestor accompanied the Prince on. Tour Guide warns that once you leave the mainland you won't be in Elven lands again until you reach the North, so if you want to recruit more Elves before you reach the North you'd better do so now. If you do try to recruit you should find only the basic level-one Elves, if you didn't recruit any of the level-two types you could've back when you were in scenario 01a, too bad. Also, you don't get given the ability to recruit horsemen. (At least until I look into checking whether you killed all the enemy leaders...)

Minimum necessary change: remember HttT's Blackwater Port scenario? This is it with very little changed so far.

Scenario 08a Princess of Wesnoth

Princess Li'sar's version of Scenario 08 The Princess of Wesnoth. Where do her true loyalties lie? This scenario is going to take some explaining: as players who have followed Konrad's exploits are aware, the Princess has a destiny and its fulfillment requires various units of Konrad's party to survive... ;)

Scenario 11a Ford of Abez

Princess Li'sar's version of Scenario 11 The Ford of Abez.


-MarkM-
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by markm »

In another section and thread,
AI wrote:But indeed, most campaigns revolve around a different protagonist in a different time on a different side. It makes no sense to move units from one campaign to another, or to even have scenarios killing them off. (as the leader is a different person)
The only way to have this make sense is if you take a step back and have some immortal being traverse spacetime in order to be the protagonist in every campaign, but that's the player already. (and seems to be what you're trying to achieve with Tourist and Grand Illusionist)
With Tourist and Grand Illusionist I have not yet taken the step up to engulf the Sol III universe. Rather, Tourist and Grand Illusionist are from some other universe that most mainstream inhabitants of the mainline of the Sol III universe - probably especially those fondly-or-otherwise known as 'muggles' in some circles - prefer to regard as being "fictional" and/or "virtual" or in some other way not "actual" or some such term or terms.

Furthermore, Grand Illusionist is not even from within the GNUniverse. In the preamble storytelling he tries to get the idea across that in the GNUniverse names have power and thus names such as his name and the name of his world and the name of Tourist's world should not even be spoken, maybe not even thought.

Now I have 'choose your character' working, by hacking the tutorial as I knew that contained code to allow you to choose to be male or female, I plan to go on to add being able to choose a character who is from a world in which literature authored by inhabitants of the Sol III universe is available. The purpose of that is in order to be able to utilise such references to Sol III literature as already exist in GNU-licensed forms, if any such exist. I am not yet sure whether GNU-licensed literature includes no quotes from nor references to any non-GNU literature published in the Sol III universe. I do know that Wikipedia contains many many many references to such literature but hmm, that is a slightly different open-document license mostly. So I am trying to tread carefully here. As the author of the worlds and stories from which creatures along the lines of the Grand Illusionist derive, I could place into the GNUverse one or more of the names by which he or someone who might maybe be him is known in some part of other of one of my novels or stories or in various places in my long-running roleplaying campaign. But so far I have preferred to start by putting more-generic terms into the GNUniverse, such as Grand and Illusionist and Grand Illusionist, that hopefully few authors from the Sol III universe are likely to be able to find legally actionable.

I do hope though to then go on to ask Tourist what world they are from, or if in fact they have any idea what world they are from. Currently I am tacitly assuming he is from my roleplaying multiuniverse, the multiverse in which "Tales of D'ydii" is set.

If Grand Illusionist does turn out to actually be the D'ydii character some D'ydii afficionados might well (by design) suspect he might be, then in D'ydii-fact he isn't actually from the world known as D'ydii but, rather, from a region known on D'ydii as The Gateworlds, a term which, for better or for worse, looks like it is destined to fall into the GNUverse very soon (if it hasn't already).

Here is a snippet from the (Copyright Mark Metson 2###-2008) material known as Tales of D'ydii:

========================================================

Ceremonial Perambulation.

"So this spot right here is where the Ring of Fire concealed itself from Cammel?" Onyx enquired. He and Marella stood before the front door of Lethron's Cottage, a short way into the woods not so very far from the village of Lethron.

"To the best of Fox's knowledge," Marella admitted. She smiled. "Supposedly Lethron opened the front door and Cammel slew him so fast that Lethron scarcely had time to recognise who it was that he was facing. Cammel's purpose was to obtain that Ring, which he had already failed to obtain from Northel the Pilgrim."

"The Grey Pilgrim," Onyx suggested.

Marella smiled. "Indeed. Lethron's brother. Some have speculated it was he that is spoken of in certain tales of Zaladar's as Tharkun, or Olorin, or Mithrandir. But Zaladar's world is strange. On the one hand, supposedly, names have no power. On the other hand, to use such names in his world might be considered a crime. Were this conversation we are having now to be published in Zaladar's world it is possible that those names would have to be left out, in which case I wonder how one would translate such a conversation. Leave gaps? Make up different names that are not, in sooth, the names of which I speak? I confess that tales of Zaladar's world somewhat baffle me sometimes."

Onyx grinned. "Yet you, like most elves I have spent time with, likely have more talent for words than I, who am only human. Hmm. Let us suppose that what you have said was already a translation into some language used in Zaladar's world, and already edited for publication. A reader in Zaladar's world might reasonably guess that the publisher has chosen names with the intent of conveying as much of their nuances and cultural significance as the chosen language permits. I notice you did not mention Merlin, which, I understand, is another famous wizardly name in Zaladar's world."

Marella sighed. "There, you see?" She said. "An important difference is that Mithrandir was a name purported to have been used by elves, Tharkun a name used by dwarfs, and Olorin a name used in the wizard's youth. Merlin was Myrdynn or some such variants, but as far as Zaladar knew the names were always phonetically rather similar. They were derivative, if you will. Mithrandir bore a golden ring with a red stone and was said to be the guardian of the secret flame. He was a wanderer often mentioned as wearing grey. In our world we would naturally think of Northel upon hearing such a description. Leave out the ring and put an eye patch on the chap and folk in Zaladar's world might think of the One-eyed mage famous in their world. I have not even mentioned the name by which Zaladar's folk would be most likely to recognise Tharkun or Mithrandir, for I am not convinced that he and Northel were one and the same. By using some of his less commonly known names I attempt to maintain the mood that the matter of the identity of the wizard spoken of in Zaladar's tales with he whom we refer to as Northel is a fancy, something out of myth or legend rather than established history. Part of the usefulness of allusions is that in the right circumstances they can allow much to be conveyed in few words. Part of the problem that some see in the kinds of restrictions that Zaladar spoke of, restrictions on the use of the most effective of allusions, is esthetic. Allusion is an important tool of poets and bards. Alluding to Mithrandir by his name that has been most popularised in Zaladar's world could convey much to anyone familiar with that world's tales. Yet it is precisely that name that would be most problematic to use in his world, for there, as I understand the matter, only certain persons granted permission to use that name are permitted to use it. Yet the very peoples who impose such rules also like to claim their world is not a world of magick. There are entire species of creatures about which people of Zaladar's world are not permitted to communicate, yet it is precisely those creatures that are believed to be nonexistent to which that restriction applies. For example in Zaladar's world I am not sure there is any word for walking talking trees that one is permitted to utilise. Various guilds or conspirators have coined various words for such creatures and they fight some kind of battles with gold and speeches at court over who may use which word for the same creature or for similar creatures. Yet, supposedly, they do not believe that any such creatures actually exist."

"I have heard that dwarfs, or at least some dwarfs, object to being referred to as dwarves," Onyx pointed out. "Might it be that walkingtalkingtrees object to being referred to as, oh, I don't know, let us say weeds, or vermin, or goblins, or some other word that someone might use or coin?"

Marella smiled. "It is not so simple. Walkingtalkingtrees as I know them like long long long names, they can take days merely to introduce themselves. Yet I do not think it is they who permit only certain chosen people to refer to them by convenient, well known, familiar household words."

"Rival authors or rival publishers," Onyx suggested. "If everything we say had to be translated into terms that are not common parlance among audiences folk might well prefer not to listen to anything we choose to say unless it were published by someone who is permitted to translate us in intelligible terms. The tales of Zaladar's world might be baffling and unintelligible precisely because people there are not permitted to communicate intelligibly."

"Hmm," Marella allowed. "Mayhap you are onto something. It has been mentioned before that there seems to be a cult of ignorance in Zaladar's world. Plots and conspiracies aimed at preventing intelligible discourse might be part of such cults. Now notice how far we have strayed from the matter of the Ring that Northel bore and how it evaded Cammel. Herein is a subtlety of the natures we ascribe to air and to fire."

"My pardon," Onyx broke in, "but inasmuch as I intend a study of the so called Major Arcane, it might be helpful to me if you happen to know whether this subtlety falls under the rubric of Minor or Major Arcane."

Marella smiled. "Nay, my pardon, Master Onyx. I doubt not that your mastery of the Minor Arcane equals or exceeds my own. But since you mention the Major Arcane, and I speak of things touching upon the capabilities of one of the Rings of Power brought to this world by Aum when first he brought elves here, I suggest that such details might best be left out when teaching arcanes purported to be minor."

Onyx smiled and nodded. Maggie, keeping watch for them, made as if to move out of earshot.

"Nay, Maggie, abide," quoth Marella. She smiled at Onyx. "For Maggie's benefit, allow me this discourse upon the natures ascribed to air and to fire by the Minor Arcane. Pixies are often thought to be flighty, as in dispersive of ideas, difficult to keep on a straight and narrow road of thought, less able than Nixies to cling obstinately to one idea. So one might think that dispersal, scattering, diversion upon many paths, would be attributed to air. Using the four virtues, one might think of To Know as knowledge of many things, mayhap potentially so many things as to tend toward confusion. To Will, on the other hand, associated with fire, one might think of as enabling one to focus upon a single thought or goal. There is however a confusion between air and fire. Mayhap if one were to think of cross-quarters between the quarters of the compass one might even speculate that this confusion could intelligibly be attributed to the cross-quarter between the air quarter and the fire quarter, which would conveniently enough bring one to the idea of placing the air quarter beside the fire quarter." She smiled at Maggie. "Such as by associating air with the east and fire with the south," she suggested.

Maggie nodded and smiled. "We stand to the south of the cottage," she pointed out. "From Lethron's perspective as he opened the door, Cammel was standing to Lethron's south. The quarter of fire.

Marella grinned at her. "Good thoughts. So then, to Lethron's left was the east, to his right the west. Which is to say, to his left was To Know, to his right was To Dare. Cammel represented To Will. From Cammel's perspective Lethron represented To Keep Silent."

"The ring went north?" Maggie ventured.

Marella shrugged. "Supposedly when it was found, after Cammel had left, it was in the grass pretty much where we stand. It seemed to the finder somewhat strange that Cammel could have overlooked it. But consider the dispersive discourse by which we have reached this point. It has been suggested that in addition to having been fired by rage Cammel's thoughts or purposes might have become dispersive. Supposedly he did not spend a lot of time searching for the ring. He seems to have accepted surprisingly fast the idea that he was not going to be able to find it. Mayhap he thought Lethron had teleported it, such that it could be anywhere not rendered secure against teleportation."

"Cammel did not have his One Ring at the time?" Maggie enquired.

Marella shrugged again. "That might not have mattered," she suggested. "Mithrandir's ring was made under the tutelage of he who made that world's One Ring. It was, mayhap, designed from the outset to fall under the control of that so called One Ring. The Ring of Angbedar, on the other hand, the so called One Ring sought by Cammel, was made long after our so called Elven Rings. Long, long, long after. Thousands of centuries after. Part of the virtue, though virtue is not really a term I like to associate with Angbedar, of the Ring of Angbedar was that of enslaving other items to its wearer's will. If the Ring of Fire had not been thus enslaved at the time of which we speak I am not sure how much help the Ring of Angbedar would have been in finding it. As you might perceive I am not asserting certainly the larger scale sequence of events. Either Cammel did not have the Ring of Angbedar or the Ring of Fire had not yet been enslaved to the Ring of Angbedar. Either case should suffice to explain why Lethron did not surrender the Ring of Fire to Cammel when they met."

Maggie pondered, looking around the area from where she stood. "Cammel became enraged and decided that he should find the Ring of Angbedar instead of looking for the Ring of Fire?" She speculated.

"At some point he was in Dragonkeep Town with the Ring of Fire and the Ring of Angbedar," Marella asserted. "He caused a wall of fire to surround the entire town, beyond the walls. It has been suggested that he should not have been able to accomplish such a feat with the Ring of Fire alone, that the Ring of Angbedar made him capable of using the Ring of Fire with far more power or efficiency than would otherwise have been expected of him. Supposedly he was not a particularly impressive mage in and of himself. I am not sure whether history has yet recorded the precise sequence of events. I confess I am more drawn to legendry myself although the two are, of course, intertwined and interrelated. It is said that Gamerin found the Ring of Angbedar, knew not what it was, and used it as a ring of invisibility. Afficionados of tales from Zaladar's world will doubtless notice that this matter of a Ring of Domination being used as a ring of invisibility also occurs in the stories surrounding the wizard Mithrandir. Later, of course, Gamerin became keeper of the Ring of Fire, which is to say, he became the Lord of Fire. I think the Ring of Angbedar slipped itself away from Gamerin at some point and allowed itself to be found by Cammel. When Cammel aquired the Ring of Angbedar the Ring of Eternity was already enslaved to it, he thus bent the will of Elfmother to his cause and it became necessary to slay her. By that time Gamerin had located his father Genleon, the Keep of the Southmarch had been built, his brother Ezekiel had been born and the three of them, with Analon and Zaladar, had encountered Genleon's brother Dralien, also known as Dra the Lion, in the wilds east of the Dragon's Tail mountains. Which about brings us to the point where our own current destination, Zurbanistan, comes into the story."

She began to lead them, slowly, deosil around the cottage.


========================================================

-MarkM-
Last edited by markm on August 16th, 2008, 1:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by Jozrael »

Zookeeper: /thread.
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by Armageddon »

ummmmm... WOW. That was...let's see...a QUADRUPLE post, all with a ton in them. To be completely honest, I had a hard time paying attention after the first line or so.

"Between the Worlds"? What worlds? Or is this tourist some sort visitor from our world of reality, drifting along on the Trade Winds of cocaine/ecstasy? That and I don't think your campaign would have a very good PLAY value, never mind the REplay value. I know personally that the Bible, even though it may have a different title/translation, it's still the same old, boring Bible, with a word different here and there (the Bible being the best example I can think of right now). At least make it unique in it's own way, besides just changing their names.
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by markm »

One world I have already happened upon via a recent forum post is named Kramxel. So possibly some Tourists might end up claiming Kramxel is their world of origin maybe, for all I know.

From what I have thus far learned about Wesnoth history, it is possible that some elves and others might have left Wesnoth's world by means of space-travel sometime before the time of the Under the Burning Suns scenario. It might be nice to follow up on that and find out whether they found worlds out there somewhere and where those worlds are and whether passage is still possible from Wesnoth to wherever they are now.

If Wesnoth's entire history as known so far, incuding the Under the Burning Suns scenario, happened 250,000+ years ago, then for all I thus far know the Elves who were brought by Aum to D'ydii about that long ago might have been from Wesnoth or descended from those who left Wesnoth.

I actually know more at present about worlds that can reach each other via space-travel than I do about worlds (other than The Gateworlds themselves) that can be reached via The Gateworlds, because up until this journey of Tourist through The Gateworlds to the world of Wesnoth it had been thought that The Gateworlds were primarily 'anomolies' most or maybe even all of which actually had their existence somehow on or in the world known as D'ydii.

My Digitalis D'ydii Cluster software back on the Apple IIe had literally billions of worlds in a region of space 1.0e11 parsecs by 1.0e11 parsecs by 1.0e11 parsecs.

There is no shortage of worlds. Generating worlds is easy. What is it some say about being a dad versus being a father? One is easy the other not so easy? Its keeping track of all the worlds or figuring out the various scenario/campaign paths that could be constructed between them allowing them to interact that seems trickier, at least sometimes.

As has been indicated several times by various people around here, its not churning out yet another battlefield that is tricky, its giving people a reason to fight? Something to fight for?

But wait, isn't it the other way around, getting them not to fight might be harder than just letting them run around killing things? I think I read recently that making a 'story' scenario is harder than making a 'battle' scenario? Hmm.

Maybe it would be useful in addition to having user-choosable difficulty levels for how hard a battle the player wants to face it could be useful to also have verbosity levels for how much (if any?) storyline the player wants to wade through to get to the next bloodbath?

I have been thinking that maybe I should put the more detailed story pages at the ends of the scenarios, so players can have their battle first before having a bunch of skippable text about they maybe don't care what since by then they've already won or lost that scenario?

Edit: Once I get the campaign-selection scenario (00a) in place I won't have to assume Tourist is a person from a world other than Wesnoth who is arriving on Wesnoth, I will be able to offer the option that you are instead a Tourist from Wesnoth and head off to some world other than Wesnoth.

I was thinking of having one entrypoint to the campaign being you choose to be the Wesnothian Knight, but I got very negative reactions when I tried to poll as to what kind of native-to-Wesnoth unit players used to playing natives of Wesnoth would prefer to play so figured most Wesnothians wouldn't want to play the Knight and go in quest of the world the Tourist comes from. Whereas I figured a player of D'ydii might well be interested in a tour of Wesnoth, or I could "make it interesting" by having rewards waiting for him when he gets back to D'ydii...

-MarkM-
Last edited by markm on August 15th, 2008, 9:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
Developing Between the Worlds campaign portmanteau.
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zookeeper
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by zookeeper »

And maybe you should actually post something which might make some sense to people other than yourself instead of that never-ending vague nonsense about tourists, worlds and grand illusionists.

Stop spamming the Wesnoth forums with that stuff, please. Write a book or a campaign about it if you need an outlet, just stop spamming the forums.

Thanks.
Armageddon
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Re: Tying it all together

Post by Armageddon »

Stop saying what could work and put your words into action. No cares about this "idea" of yours until it becomes a product. I'll admit, I probably will never play it, given that so far it's a carbon copy of HttT, but if it gets better and I mean a TON better, I might give it a shot.
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