The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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cephalo
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by cephalo »

raoni wrote:there is a sequel planned or in process or ongoing?
Yes. I haven't started it yet as I am working on a different project. But when I hit some benchmarks with my current project I'm going to switch back to Wesnoth.
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CannonFodder
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by CannonFodder »

Huh! Wesbane already wrote a nice review for the campaign, I rather won't repeat what he told, but since I also enjoyed it greatly, I add my impressions.

I played using Wesnoth 1.10.5, Linux. I am just an occasional player, so I chose Normal difficulty.

As I mentioned I am just an occasional player, while I like to explore the Wesnoth lore through playing from times to times, I don't have too much knowledge it, neither am I something exceptional in the actual game. So my thought just reflect this state.

My overall impressions were that the story was great, the ideas (map design and objectives) were great, the game progressed bug-free, but maybe it was a bit easy (even after skipping about 2 months of playing the game).

What I may add compared to Wesbane's review:

Design-wise I also thought first that those Students seem to be a bit useless. But later I changed my mind, see spoilers. The low percentages for the gold carry-over I think were right, otherwise the campaign would have turned too easy (at least with the strategy I used). I also experienced that the Refugees scenario was moderately difficult, but Loyalty's Cruel Reward was not particularly. Instead I thought Evacuation rather difficult at first (see spoilers again).
Spoiler:
Technology wise I might add that not all those dragon animations seem to be used. Particularly the young and the old Kratemaqht only has roles in cutscenes while for me it seems that the full character is contained within the resources. Getting rid of those alone would greatly reduce the size of the package. He should be included somewhere (that is not in the campaign itself inflating it's size) though in complete for those who would like to use him that way! The canvas size for .png does not particularly matter, however if Wesnoth can handle it, the colour depth of the images may be reduced to 8bit (not any noticeably worse quality at 255 colours + transparency for a decent saving in size), and maybe some experimenting with pngcrush or simply reducing colour depth even more may pay off (I think 95 colour + transparency will still look perfectly fine for these dragons).

Hope these help! I also attached my play-through of the game (using Wesnoth 1.10.5, Linux).
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LoK-replays-10.5.tar.bz2
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Adamant14
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Adamant14 »

Maybe you like to add your review here:Guide_to_UMC_Campaigns/Players_Reviews :)
Help how to do this you can find here: help

EDIT: There is no problem to have two (or more) reviews for one campaign.
Author of Antar, Son of Rheor ( SP Campaign) | Development Thread + Feedback Thread + Replays of ASoR
cephalo
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by cephalo »

Thanks for the review CannonFodder. It's great to see how people play through these scenarios in ways I would have never imagined. I may tinker with the story a bit in the distant future, as you are not the first to say that the ending is rather abrupt.
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CannonFodder
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by CannonFodder »

Thanks, I won't forget! Just that these are weekdays, work, on the next weekend I will at least rewatch my replays carefully (maybe I will even notice some bug or thing over which I passed while playing so to give some more feedback in this topic) and complete a more proper nicer review for the guide ;)
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CannonFodder
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by CannonFodder »

Huh, I wouldn't even guess just rewatching my replays and noting up stuff will take no less than five hours! But if I did, then let's make some use of it!

First general things, then the spoilers.

Both me and Wesbane posted some replays for the campaigns. They might be replayed in the appropriate versions of Wesnoth started from a console. In Linux this is simply the matter of starting Wesnoth from a shell window, I don't have Windows, but probably it will work from it's cmd or something. The engine spits out several warnings here and there in some of the missions which might be corrected (too many to be carefully noted by me with the events causing them).

(Well, I also have to note that the campaign works perfectly well in Linux. A year or so ago I could fetch ones which did not since the author did not consider the case-sensitivity of Linux file systems)

The dragon bite attack animations have a small, but noticeable glitch. The dragon slides forth into the attacked hex and back while the animation is stationary. I don't know how Wesnoth works here, maybe it is not possible to prevent this movement. Maybe it is possible to reasonably work around this though if this is the case with counter-animating (sliding the dragon back so the end result is stationary). Well, probably this is silly stupid, just an idea.

It might be logical for the large fires to have a glow radius where they cancel out the effect of night. This of course changes how those maps play, but might enrich possibilities in tactics.

For the stealth missions you might take a look in Legend of Wesmere's The Chief must die mission. Probably you played it already, I just mention that that stealth mission seemed to work well, maybe useful for ideas.

Aren't there any graphics for some interior decoration? Some rugs, tables, chairs and the like? Not that it needs to look rich like interiors of a role playing game, but some of the very bland rooms could have a facelift. (I had seen some role playing style concepts flying around, maybe you could agree on borrowing some graphics from such if they have any). The way you created a bar in the tavern was clever though!

The female Scholar when advancing for behaviour although turns into Professor proper, but her attack graphics and name will be "Arch Mage". That is she appears to throw fireballs (it is still a staff though).

And now mission specific things I found:
Spoiler:
So that's it. Maybe I will get myself writing a review too, well, if I see I have time! Hope these now will be of more value for further work on this nice campaign!
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Wesbane
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Wesbane »

CannonFodder wrote:[...]having those 0% defense spots may be worthy
Having such a thing is rather a mistake in design. If you really want lower defense there just sunk the cave. Rails in shallow water won't look bad and defense will remain low, but without guaranteed hit. Alternatively you can use ice or snow. All of this of course depends on visual effect you want to achieve. And as I written before there is no need to go there because there is no time limit that would require more aggressive strategy.
cephalo wrote:[...] I really need to do the second half of the story first so it's at least a complete arc.
It's really nice to hear that you still plan to do it, but you should decide what you will do with story in your first campaign. Since events in this part are earlier.
cephalo wrote:[...] I need to save a lot of lich lord internal drama for the sequel that happens 900+ years later.
Currently you don't saving anything, you just not using potential that you put in your story. Why you would prefer one character, a really not interesting character, over four others who are entirely different from each other? Insane maniac over statesman hiding his pride and ambition even before himself, obeying law general deceived by power, kindhearted but not very bright lady and not heroic, greedy, funky thief. It seemed that you somehow think that after destruction of Cahal nothing cool can happen. Story will be complete.
What is gained from leaving things as is?
Cahal wins:
I might be alone in that but still I think that your characters deserve better ending and it would give you a lot more of possibilities than current one. In your own words an internal lich lord drama for the sequel that happen more than nine hundreds years later.
Cahal loses:
cephalo
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by cephalo »

I just uploaded this campaign to the 1.12 server. The only changes made are that I further compressed the images with PNGGauntlet, which saves about 10Mb in download size. I tested the campaign and found no issues, but let me know if anyone finds otherwise.
Drakilian
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Drakilian »

Recently tried to play this game on version 1.11.17 of Wesnoth, but when I get to the 3rd scenario and the dark adept leads Shifty away to the lord of the manor, Shifty's dialogue stops appearing (everyone else's dialogue stays) and then I automatically lose the scenario.
cephalo
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Joined: December 20th, 2009, 4:37 pm

Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by cephalo »

Drakilian wrote:Recently tried to play this game on version 1.11.17 of Wesnoth, but when I get to the 3rd scenario and the dark adept leads Shifty away to the lord of the manor, Shifty's dialogue stops appearing (everyone else's dialogue stays) and then I automatically lose the scenario.
Uh oh, sounds like a breaking change was made. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for reporting it.

EDIT: Has anyone had this trouble on the newer versions?
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Paulomat4
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Paulomat4 »

I believe this is a bug on a special wesnoth version. Drakilian, which version are you using? This might also be related to your problems with LOTI
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Drakilian
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Drakilian »

Paulomat4 wrote:I believe this is a bug on a special wesnoth version. Drakilian, which version are you using? This might also be related to your problems with LOTI

1.11.17 OS X, unless the bottom of my screen is lying to me.
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Paulomat4
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Paulomat4 »

look at this thread. http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=41084 Apparently there is a bug in 1.11.17.
Could you try it with a newer version of wesnoth? (I believe they have already fixed it in 1.11.18)
Creator of Dawn of Thunder and Global Unitmarkers

"I thought Naga's used semi-automatic crossbows with incendiary thermite arrows . . . my beliefs that this race is awesome are now shattered." - Evil Earl
Drakilian
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Drakilian »

Ah, awesome.

I can transfer saves of current games to slightly newer versions of Wesnoth, right? (He said hopefully)
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Paulomat4
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Paulomat4 »

Yes, but only when loading start-of-scenario saves. So saves that look like titleofscenario.gz .
Creator of Dawn of Thunder and Global Unitmarkers

"I thought Naga's used semi-automatic crossbows with incendiary thermite arrows . . . my beliefs that this race is awesome are now shattered." - Evil Earl
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