The Altaz Mariners (2p pirate RPG) now with French translation!

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aderidder
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - finally finished!

Post by aderidder »

I feel like the switch-over happened in more than one place, but the one I distinctly recall is the Ivory Tower (if that's the place where Wuhac hires you to kill scorpions). When we saved and reloaded (and we played through a few turns and did this and that, along with saving and reloading several times, to make sure that that was the cause), the Arab-looking guys all switched and started attacking us. This allowed us to pull a nifty trick in the library, where by saving and reloading we made the front-desk librarian become our enemy, killed him, and got inside the unauthorized library space. But it seemed like a glitch, however entertaining it might be.

As for the fan fiction, I'm writing a four-part novel or novella (it will depend on how much I can come up with!) called The Island of Dr. Morteau, about an evil humanities professor who lures graduate students into studying with him and then turns most of them into wandering, witless zombies. The brothers, Francisco and Antonio, become students of his but subsequently realize that they, too, are slated for zombification, leading them into a struggle with all that is unholy in academia.
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jb
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - finally finished!

Post by jb »

I've never seen the behavior you describe in any reloading bug. Again, as Bob asked, were you playing is as an MP campaign? (Muliplayer -> Local Game?) Or did you load it from the SP Campaigns button?

called The Island of Dr. Morteau
Just so you are aware, that is a reference to the H.G. Wells Dr. Moreau story. Bob and I are both fans. You'll find TAM is littered with several such references to historical figures, our favorite games, stories, music, etc.
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Avdpos
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - finally finished!

Post by Avdpos »

Fun campaign!
Haven´t played through it but like what I have seen.

I do not remember correctly but ain´t morteu. AIn´t it some early sci fi-doctor that am named something like that and works on an island in pacific sea. And his goal is to make manlike creatures from animals. Sounds a little bit like morteu. Nice thing you got inspiration from. Ain´t many that read that book in this day´s.

Edit: always read the post before.. thought about this but didn´t wrote it down before yo uposted this one.. But didn´t saw you had posted it before I wrote my comment..
Just so you are aware, that is a reference to the H.G. Wells Dr. Moreau story.
But now you know that at least one person saw the reference.
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taptap
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - finally finished!

Post by taptap »

Enjoyable, challenging, funny. I played as single player (I arrived to storm Fort Liberty now) and am very impressed. First strictly non-linear, RPG-esque campaign I see - I didn't really play before because playing MP as SP - with balance. I start the climactic battle with only a few levelled followers (only 3) and loyals (2 wose, sylph, shyde, soothsayer) and the rest of my army are either L1 or L2 military slaves (if there isn't some caveat later on, they are too cheap given how difficult/expensive/time consuming it is to level other units + they have no upkeep). The high xp requirements would benefit many SP campaigns so L3 remain rare until the end.

Likely I missed half of the miniquests (or had started them but missed a clue somewhere so even when I guessed what should happen next I didn't manage to trigger the all important next dialog) I have plenty of gold (1800) but by far not enough units to use it all (even when I made a tour to buy some more slaves and recruit some L1 for recall) but I hate the idea of scumming around longer to prepare better - wasted some 3600 turns already mostly sailing from and towards some dialog I missed to trigger (in particular I heared about crows murder then talked to the trapper, but the dialog didn't trigger because I had talked with him earlier in that scenario I believe - in the end it took ages before I visited him again). If you end with 1500-2000 turn count it is probably much smoother and you don't have as much battles on the sea that stopped being a challenge as they were in early and midgame.

In the tower I made a different (equilateral) triangle and the triangle you wanted me to make didn't occur to me at all.
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name
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - MP Campaign, out now!

Post by name »

Bob_The_Mighty wrote:We'd really appreciate it if anyone who plays this could answer a few questions... Thanks in advance. Oh, and please use spoiler tags for anything plot-related.
1. Difficulty: Which bits were too easy, which bits were too hard?
Spoiler:
2. Gameplay: Did anything seem unintuitive or fiddly?
Spoiler:
When buying new ships, they appear to have different hitpoints and weapons like cannons and ballistas, but these features never get used. I didn't realize until the end of the game that the only advantages to the frigate I bought was cargo space and an extra village.
3. Story: Were you able to follow it? Did some parts not make sense? Did the Log help?
Spoiler:
The log was a big help. I felt like maybe I never uncovered many of the side quests though.
4. Fun: Which bits did you find the most and least fun? Why?
I liked the dialogue and some of the storyline twists the most. Your style of characters seem to be a lot more believable as real people than most in the mainline wesnoth campaigns which seem pretty brainless/childish/bland. It isn't the language, I prefer the old-english style that mainline wesnoth has been moving over to, but in Altaz Mariners, the motivations and decisions characters make seem a lot more fleshed out a relate-able given the circumstances.

In general what I found the least fun was the more constrained and linear game play of this campaign versus The High Seas.
5. Improvements: Any bugs, suggestions or ideas?
I'm sure it would be way to much work to implement, but most any game play feature brought over from High Seas would be awesome. Carrying your crew around inside your ship, ship to ship battles with ballistas and such ship mounted weapons that can sink you, a giant unified world map, being able to disembark at will, being able to see and try to evade oceanic enemies under the right circumstances, choosing your captains, commanding more than one ship and trying to coordinate them against the fairly superior royal navy and random pirates/monsters, getting a trickle of gold from captured villages (tribute), etc.
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - finally finished!

Post by aquileia »

Updated from 8.6 to 10.6 for the sole reason of playing Altaz Mariners in singleplayer mode... great campaign! I like the doubled XP requirements as it supports the impression that your units are valuable. However, I encountered two glitches:

- In temple_of_ice-a, Ratty had a nice talk about keeping a hydra as a pet (no canrecruit filter); if you wanted to keep it, this would make a nice easter egg:
Spoiler:
- While the random distribution of the rewards in the temples of Hellenia might seem nice, there is a clear drawback: It does not only affect the distribution - one item can get picked several times or not at all. As book and map in Hellenia are accessed via a random number and you have only 6 attempts, I never got the book and therefore had no chance to donate two books at ivory_tower2. Please, please ensure that the player gets these relevant items.



1. Difficulty: As I save-loaded from time to time, things were easy. Fort Liberty was quite hard as I had less than 300 gold in total... should have traded more before.
2. Gameplay: I agree that differentiating the ships by other means than cargo and movement would be nice - next time, I would take Athos' money and buy a frigate.
3. Story: The only information I didn't understand was why they should decide to kill Frozenheart - they only want to destroy the barrier, and after the dialog with Flameheart, I thought they were to free him (his situation seemed comparable to that of Solane) and persuade him that the barrier does no good.
4. Fun: While most scenarios were challenging or intriguing, blade_point-c was rather dull. As I already was at the royal palace, the objective to talk with Deliana only led to some boring speech. I got the impression of a group standing there, lamenting over the misdeeds of Tylon, but too sluggish to move a single hex.
5. Improvements: see above

Addendum: What is the point of the victory-scenario? I moved around, trying to find a way to escape, but not even Renaldo spoke with me.


EDIT:
In Hellenia, the message "Brother, look at this! There's loot lying all around the place..." can be triggered by followers. As they aren't needed, I'd suggest to leave them onboard.
I noticed that it wasn't bad luck that I never found the book, you disabled the book by placing {CLEAR_VARIABLE random} before this option - is that intended? However if you deleted that line, option 5 would be doubled. What about this alternative, already playtested implementation:
Spoiler:
What I couldn't change, but would be preferable in my humble opinion: Like the substraction of the location from the list of temples, there could be a list "1,2,3,4,5,6" out of which "RANDOM" chooses one, whereafter this number is used and deleted from the list.
alelil
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - finally finished!

Post by alelil »

what to do after the story got stuck at temple of ice, i got the orb but it dont allow using it before i know where marco is? and there is no new clue after i got punk by coldfist says icewind know better than him, i have travelled around asking to every pixel that i can find except the royal guard but no progress on marco
so please maybe someone can give me some tips ? :D
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jb
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - finally finished!

Post by jb »

Hi alelil,

I'm not exactly sure what you are asking, but I think...
Spoiler:
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alelil
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - finally finished!

Post by alelil »

yes maybe that's my problem is but..
Spoiler:
H-Hour
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - finally finished!

Post by H-Hour »

Got a chance to play a bit more of this today. Really polished add-on here.
Am I meant to be doing a lot of trading to earn extra gold for recruits? I'm kind of just pushing the story forward as it comes, but twice in a row today I ran into scenarios I couldn't even come close to completing.
Spoiler:
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jb
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - finally finished!

Post by jb »

Hi H-Hour. Glad you got a chance to play.

I think the phrasing you want is "men free", although "free men" works as well (just a different meaning).

Is this from a line of dialogue? lol, there are 1,000s of lines of dialogue and I don't remember this instance.

As far as the general difficulty, there are two clues to help players (though I guess they could be more explicit). The color of the label indicates the difficulty of the scenario. For example, a green label is safe, a yellow label is possible combat, a red label is hard difficulty. The second clue for players is to note the available recruit hexes on a map. It is a very loose guide to how many recruits you may need.

Specifically for the scenario you mentioned:
Spoiler:
cheers,
jb
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - finally finished!

Post by H-Hour »

Ahh, those are helpful clues. Thanks, jb.

Regarding the dialogue comment: my first two comments link to pictures, which should give you map and character context for the dialogue I'm referring to.
Tickeldi
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - finally finished!

Post by Tickeldi »

Hey guys. I've played through the campaign with a friend but now we're not sure if we're stuck or if the campaign is just over.
Spoiler:
Should we move someone somewhere or is this just it?
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jb
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Re: The Altaz Mariners - finally finished!

Post by jb »

Hi Tickeldi,

It's a strange thing you describe.
Spoiler:
I hope you don't mind, but I've put your thread in spoiler tags.
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Icarium
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Stuck in The Temple of Ice as well :(

Post by Icarium »

I've been enjoying this great campaign, astounding work!

However, now my story seems to be stuck at the Temple of Ice. I've cleared every island accessible north of the storm. In the temple, I got Nippo kicked out of the order and visited The hidden chamber where the Shrine of the Brotherhood founder lies. I took his book and also made it to the second level and basement of the Ivory Tower. I also have the map to Marco's island but that's apparently south of the storm. In the temple I found the key to the orb/money area, but my characters didn't dare to touch the blue orb. I activated all the crystals that were available beforehand. Joining the brotherhood wasn't an option either and I didn't get a chance to meet the lvl 4 guy behind the closed gate.

How should the story advance from here? Any help would be very much appreciated.
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