Some improvements for the map

telex4 · Post by **telex4** » December 26th, 2003, 12:30 am

I've come up with a few suggestions of how I think the map could be improved...

1) Have the routes drawn between each battle and the battle sites remain as you go through the campaign. It would give each campaign more of a sense of continuity and progress if you could see your journey progress with each level.

2) Have the overall route make more sense; at the moment, Konrad and company seem to jump all over the map, rather than steadily progress across it. I think it'd make more sense if the group moved in a more logical fashion over the island, which would be especially important if number 1 were implemented.

3) It might give a campaign's storyline more depth if you could see the movements of other groups / armies / individuals on other parts of the map. This would of course increase the complexity of creating a storyline, but I think it'd be interesting if, in the main campaign for example, you saw the enemy first invading a land to the north of Wesnoth, then perhaps making some strategic moves which you have to confront later in the campaign (I'm up to the sceptre of fire level so I don't know how well this could fit in with the current campaign)

From a grateful user and humble programmer/documentor/philosopher with no spare time to help

telex4 · Post by **telex4** » January 20th, 2004, 8:37 pm

These suggestions never really got anywhere. Do other people find them interesting, even good, or are they just not worth the bother?

Post by **fmunoz** » January 20th, 2004, 8:46 pm

These ideas are nice and were read and pondered, just most developers dont have the time to implement them.
Maybe adding a smaller than small konrad walking image, (some orcs leaders images perhaps) will be a good idea and reuse the crossed sword for past battles... dont know for sure... but there are too many things still to do...
The movement dots could be redone easily, look in the scenario files, each dots are simple a line stating where in the map should be placed... the current map is done based on the older one...not in the storyline, as new levels where added between I started the drawing and I finished it.
Feel free to draw new map do it in black and write and I could add later colour, texture, frame, map lines and other stuff, simple the terrain with small woods and mountains...

Woodwizzle · Post by **Woodwizzle** » January 20th, 2004, 9:17 pm

All previous battles and routes should be shown but grayed out so that its easy to tell which route and battle is the current one.

telex4 · Post by **telex4** » January 20th, 2004, 9:25 pm

Ah, well perhaps it would be best to revisit points 1 & 2 closer to the 1.0 releases when the storyline is complete to save having to constantly redo it each time the storyline changes (and so requires a change in the map).

As for the ideas that require further coding, if time is found, great

If not, no problem. I know how frustrating it is seeing feature requests pile up

miyo · Post by **miyo** » January 20th, 2004, 9:43 pm

Submit feature request - http://bugs.wesnoth.org

- Miyo

sparky · Post by **sparky** » January 20th, 2004, 10:42 pm

Overall, good ideas, the map screen seems a bit divorced from the actual game.
Be nice to see your previous victories as it would enhance the storyline a little.

telex4 · Post by **telex4** » January 21st, 2004, 11:18 am

I've submitted it as a feature request to the bug tracker.

scott · Post by **scott** » February 11th, 2006, 2:24 pm

I am the thread resurrection MASTER.

Option 1 is feasible with a minimum of work, esp if the previous routes are greyed out.

Option 2 is no longer relevant since we have a new map.

I am soliciting ideas for implementing option 3 or another option. If someone can make something work and it looks really cool, maybe we can use it.

I don't want to gratuitously invite submissions that will just be discarded, since it's cruel and demotivating... but there's a chance someone will come up with something spectacular, so the door is open.

Irrevenant had an idea along these lines, which I would be willing to implement if he does all the hard work.

Don't you love open source?

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » February 11th, 2006, 3:59 pm

scott wrote:I am the thread resurrection MASTER.

Option 1 is feasible with a minimum of work, esp if the previous routes are greyed out.

Option 2 is no longer relevant since we have a new map.

I am soliciting ideas for implementing option 3 or another option. If someone can make something work and it looks really cool, maybe we can use it.
...
Irrevenant had an idea along these lines, which I would be willing to implement if he does all the hard work.

Unless i'm missing something there are very few other movements besides Konrad's party to track all over the map. It would be trivial to create the art for a few different dashed lines. but you would have to lable them for it to make any sense, or at least provide a translatable map key.

scott · Post by **scott** » February 11th, 2006, 4:24 pm

You could track the movements of orcs, elves, elense, clans, loyalists, etc.

They don't need to be dashed lines, rather they could be something like wide arrows or battle lines like in WW2 cartoons.

It would mean there is more going on in the background than we now get when playing. For example, we would know how the wood elves are doing against the orcs. Maybe they are pushed out of their forest. The orcs could skirmish with the Elense but are pushed back east when the Anduin mages, Blackwater knights, and Elense join forces at the Bay of Pearls. Stuff like that. These "updates on battles taking place elsewhere" would develop while Konrad is up in the mountains and stuff.

telex4 · Post by **telex4** » February 12th, 2006, 11:10 am

I quite like the WW2 cartoon arrows

There are other graphic depictions one could use such as colour overlays for territories, and/or showing mini explosions / dust clouds and then leaving crossed swords behind for major battles.

I think it would give campaigns a more rounded feel. Although the text occasionally mentions what's going on elsewhere, and dedicated players can read the game history on the web site, you mostly get the feeling that you're going on some linear campaign whilst the rest of the world stands still. Really good novels will always put the story in a grander context, even so far as making your story really rather minor compared to the bigger picture. It would be nice to have that feeling in campaigns

Post by **torangan** » February 12th, 2006, 12:54 pm

telex4 wrote:Really good novels will always put the story in a grander context, even so far as making your story really rather minor compared to the bigger picture. It would be nice to have that feeling in campaigns

I agree that this would be a good idea. Since you seem to be a native english speaker, maybe you'd like to help by pushing the text into this direction as well?

scott · Post by **scott** » July 7th, 2006, 2:14 pm

telex4 wrote:I quite like the WW2 cartoon arrows There are other graphic depictions one could use such as colour overlays for territories, and/or showing mini explosions / dust clouds and then leaving crossed swords behind for major battles.

I think it would give campaigns a more rounded feel. Although the text occasionally mentions what's going on elsewhere, and dedicated players can read the game history on the web site, you mostly get the feeling that you're going on some linear campaign whilst the rest of the world stands still. Really good novels will always put the story in a grander context, even so far as making your story really rather minor compared to the bigger picture. It would be nice to have that feeling in campaigns

I hereby summon this thread from the dead:

Is anyone interested in making some nice arrows or movement borders for the map? They should show in, an attractive manner, the movements of the Northerners, Loyalists, and Rebels as the campaign progresses. This may not be a good idea, but I'm willing to try it out.