Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.12 & 1.14)

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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tr0ll
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8 & 1.9)

Post by tr0ll »

a comment after playing the big final battle:
Spoiler:
mattsc
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8 & 1.9)

Post by mattsc »

Thanks, tr0ll, that's a good point.
Spoiler:
tr0ll wrote:i had to restart the turn hoping for different luck, which i hate to do.
I agree, you shouldn't have to do that. I will look into it. Thanks!
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Evander
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8 & 1.9)

Post by Evander »

Finished this today.

I will give it 8/10 for some reasons

What I disliked:
- basically, campaign is just too short :) it doesn't let you raise a lot of 3 lvl units and with all it's fun ends too soon.

and thats it :)

What I liked:
- scripting
- a lot of events and things going on
- storyline, especialy ending
- idea for hero (cool to start with someone who is not a kick-ass from the beginning)
- a feeling of some maps
- well balanced
- idea of moving between the maps and the main map

Thats one hell of a campaign here. I loved it in the first scenario when your elves could just zip through the large forest. I liked The Chief and how it is somewhat related to Grnk the Mighty :)

But it ended too soon for my taste. Wish it could be longer and thats -2 for final rating.

Still, it is well worth playing :eng:
mattsc
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Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8 & 1.9)

Post by mattsc »

Evander: Wow, I'm happy to hear that you liked it so much. :D

As for the length, yeah, I agree, I'd like to make it a bit longer too. This was my first campaign, I essentially learned WML as I wrote it and that was about as much as I could handle at the time. Maybe after I'm done with Grnk Part 2 I will come back to it.

Thanks!!
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taptap
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Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8 & 1.9)

Post by taptap »

In Altwald you can send units with Norfindil, I managed to send two fighters and a shaman for a slightly odd feeling when I reached the Northern Route scenario. :) Never thought they will end on the recall list in a scenario where i can recruit...

Journey back and Northern Route both have a serious time limit, but as one hasn't to kill but just to pass, that is ok, I think. If you move on the castle of the dark sorcerer dispatching the undead is pretty easy (ok, since I had only L1 units I wasn't unhappy about that). Your campaigns have some very nice artefacts - not just the sword of plot enhancement, but really interesting features.
I am a Saurian Skirmisher: I'm a real pest, especially at night.
mattsc
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Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8 & 1.9)

Post by mattsc »

Thanks, taptap. I'm happy to hear that you are enjoying them. Thanks for all the feedback!
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taptap
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Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8 & 1.9)

Post by taptap »

Final: Was this mage, whom I killed here, Grnk? So sad. (Oh, the goblin mage is talking about a grand plan as well.) I had 1 sylph at the start of the scenario, 3 at the end, but some losses in shydes and many other units (my pet lich among others). A fairy force took out the ancient lich. The goblin mage wasn't a challenge anymore after I survived the L3 recruits. I had to retreat all the way to the forest, then I made dinner. Honestly, I found the goblin mage pretty unnecessary here. You have your generic bad guy already, and the goblin mage has no previous story at all. But I see, you wrote this for personal entertainment :)

In the last scenarios I found the orc are recruiting a ridiculous amount of assassins. (30-50% of their army) Afaik, this is very common, when you start with very few units or don't recruit for one turn - as you can't recruit for some turns e.g. in Pindir Forest you pretty much effect AI recruit by scenario design already. That is ok, just not sure you are aware of it.

What you did with Elralith is a very convenient way to avoid ally leader suicide. Thank you (a feature which needs to be implemented in some mainline campaigns).
I am a Saurian Skirmisher: I'm a real pest, especially at night.
mattsc
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Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8 & 1.9)

Post by mattsc »

taptap wrote:But I see, you wrote this for personal entertainment :)
Yes, I did. :) When I wrote this, I really didn't know what I was doing, neither how to use WML nor how to write a Wesnoth story (the latter is still very difficult for me). I kind of made up both as I went along. If I'd write Galuldur now, there's be a few things I'd do differently. The goblin mage in the last scenario is meant as a hook for a back story that might or might not someday be told. Actually, at the time, I thought I'd extend Galuldur by a few scenarios sometime (and developing that back story would have been an option), but I think that's unlikely to happen now. But yeah, the way it's right now he seem to be mostly just an afterthought.
taptap wrote:(my pet lich among others)
You had a pet lich too?? ;)
taptap wrote:In the last scenarios I found the orc are recruiting a ridiculous amount of assassins. (30-50% of their army) Afaik, this is very common, when you start with very few units or don't recruit for one turn - as you can't recruit for some turns e.g. in Pindir Forest you pretty much effect AI recruit by scenario design already. That is ok, just not sure you are aware of it.
Thanks. I do know about it now, but to be honest, I don't remember how aware I was of it when I wrote this. These days I know how to deal with it (easily; it's done in several scenarios of Grnk), but back then I just let the AI do whatever it wants to do.
taptap wrote:What you did with Elralith is a very convenient way to avoid ally leader suicide. Thank you (a feature which needs to be implemented in some mainline campaigns).
You're most welcome. I figured the scenario would be too unstable if I let Elralith do whatever he wanted. These days, I would try to alter the AI behavior, but (again) back then I would have had no idea how to do that.

As always, thanks for all those very helpful comments!
Shakeshake
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Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8 & 1.9)

Post by Shakeshake »

I just finished this campaign and it was awesome! To be honest, the simple title and description didn't have me expecting much--how pleasantly surprised I was to discover such a tightly constructed and entertaining campaign. The real success of the campaign, to me, was the size--all the scenarios fit their maps well and remained action packed from start to finish thanks to the variety of enemies/surprises spread out across them. I also liked that even the "big battle" scenarios included in this campaign weren't just cases of massive army against massive army but managed to convey epicness while keeping the actual amount of units to a fairly manageable level.
I thought all of the "surprises" were handled very well, keeping things interesting without creating insanely difficult situations.
I only played it through once (so far), but the handful of choices (both the scripted ones and in the multiple possible strategies the scenarios allow) might even get me to play it again!

If I have any advice, I would suggest updating the description of the campaign so as to better capture how excellent it is (the way it currently is had me expecting a roughly made series of "kill all enemy (orc) leaders (with your, ever growing, army of elves) " scenarios, whereas, despite being short, it was a polished gem of a campaign made of a variety of scenario types)!
mattsc
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Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8 & 1.9)

Post by mattsc »

Shakeshake: Thank you for the glowing review! :D I'm not a fan of huge battle scenarios (seems like we share that), so that's definitely reflected in the campaign. I'm very happy to hear that you enjoyed it so much.
Shakeshake wrote:If I have any advice, I would suggest updating the description of the campaign so as to better capture how excellent it is
Hmm, I'll think about it. Saying something like "This campaign is excellent and you should really play it" sounds ... not quite right. ;)

Thanks again, it's great to hear that people are still playing (and enjoying) Galuldur.
Shakeshake
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Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8 & 1.9)

Post by Shakeshake »

mattsc wrote: Hmm, I'll think about it. Saying something like "This campaign is excellent and you should really play it" sounds ... not quite right. ;)
Haha, well obviously that exactly might not work; but I think the description currently is so short that I wasn't sure what to expect/wasn't even sure whether the campaign would be fully complete, much less made with so much care (while I suppose the version number should reveal this, that isn't always necessarily an accurate indication of quality/completeness)!

Given all the twists in the story, I can see how it might be hard to give much more description without giving too much away! But I guess I shouldn't make the suggestion if I'm not willing to offer a description of my own, so here's what I came up with:

"While the belligerence of orcs is nothing new, when their intensifying attacks on a fledgling colony of elves in the Pindir Forest begin to show signs of a deeper malice, Galuldur, the young son of the colony's adventurous founder Galur, must venture out of his forest's friendly trees in search of help. His simple errand quickly turns into a frantic quest to unearth the roots of the mysterious evil threatening his people. In this campaign, Galuldur quickly learns that the world is neither a friendly nor a simple place as you lead him through unknown lands, forced to match wits with unexpected adversaries at nearly every turn in a desperate attempt to save his world. (Intermediate level. 8 or 9 scenarios depending on choices made in game. Complete.)"

I feel like something like that would give people a better idea of the campaign--I don't think I gave too much away--and hopefully entice them to download/play it! The generic sounding "Young elf Galuldar gets thrown into his first adventure" makes it seem like the campaign will be a boring "My First Campaign" style elf adventure, which I think it is much more complex and interesting than!
mattsc
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Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8 & 1.9)

Post by mattsc »

Wow, you even did the work for me. And much more eloquently than I could have done, thanks! You're right, that's a much better "advertisement" than the previous text. Maybe it will get a couple more people to play it.

The new version is up on the server (1.9/1.10, I'll take care of 1.8 in a little while), with only a couple minor changes from your suggestion (I think I didn't change anything of substance). I also added you to the campaign credits. Let me know if you want your real-life name added to that. Some people do, others don't, it's up to you.
Shakeshake wrote:The generic sounding "Young elf Galuldar gets thrown into his first adventure" makes it seem like the campaign will be a boring "My First Campaign" style elf adventure
But it was my first HTH-do-I-do-this-in_WML elf campaign. ;) I did have the story basics worked out before I started coding though, so I think that helped. And hey, while we're on the topic of advertising, if you think that this one has a lot of twists, there's much more of that in my other campaign, Grnk. Not saying that either one of them is better than the other, that's a matter of personal taste, I think, but at least in Galuldur you know who the good guys are...

Thank you very much again!
Shakeshake
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Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8, 1.9, 1.10)

Post by Shakeshake »

I had noticed that you said it was your first campaign earlier in the thread and I was very impressed! Hopefully the snazzier description will make it more clear that it's a full-fledged (if short) campaign and not just a "can-I -make-something-that-works-in-WML" practice run! I'm glad you tried so many different things in your first attempt instead of taking a more straightforward design approach as many people seem to when they're just starting out--it gives me hope that if I ever decide to try my hand at making some sort of WML creation it will be possible for me to make something I find interesting right off the bat!

Thanks for using my description--hopefully it will help lure some people into downloading the campaign! I'm fine with just my alias being in the credits.

As for Grnk, his saga is already downloaded and waiting for me :wink: ! Once I get a chance to play it, I'll be sure to give my impressions!
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AxalaraFlame
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Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8, 1.9, 1.10)

Post by AxalaraFlame »

Hey bro, there is a very basic problem: I cannot download this campaign on 1.10 server. I am not sure whether I was wrong or not, but I really didn't find it on the add-on server.
mattsc
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Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8, 1.9, 1.10)

Post by mattsc »

Hey, I just typed 'mattsc' in the 'Filter' line and all three of my add-ons show up, including Galuldur. Are you sure you didn't try on the 1.11 server? Other than that I have no idea what might be going on. :hmm:
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