How to make your campaign mainline

[nuorc]

About storyline - of course it must be, and must be cool and must be interlaced with Wesnoth history. But first is tactical idea of each level, then means to realize idea (concrete units with concrete abilities for this purpuse), then map of the level, then storyline.

I am very interested in enjoying a good storyline that doesn't feel bumpy or forced because your heroes have to do certain stunts...

There is no way to tell that your campaign will be good.

Nope, i disagree. There is obviously things that can make u campaign definetely to be rejected.

I dare say those are two slightly different things.

There's surely a significant political component to getting a campaign mainlined

'Political'? You mean like people should enjoy interacting with you, because you depend on their testing, feedback, art etc?

[Implementor37]

This may or may not be true, but here is what I have found tends to characterize mainline campaigns:
-Mainline campaigns rated "Easy/Beginner" are designed to introduce a new player to the world of Wesnoth (ex. HttT, Two Brothers)
-Mainline campaigns rated "Normal" are designed to introduce players to standard Wesnoth tactics (ex. DiD, Dead Water)
-Mainline campaigns rated "Hard/Expert" are designed to introduce players to advanced/unique tactics (Hammer of Thursagan/Sceptre of Fire) and/or the add-on server (Under the Burning Suns)
-All mainline campaigns use default factions, occasionally with a few custom units.
-Mainline campaigns are exquisitely balanced.

A great plot, while helpful to get a campaign accepted as mainline seems to be secondary to the above concepts (IftU has one of the greatest plots ever, but it remains an add-on due to nonstandard factions--there are other great add-ons with excellent plots that are not mainline as well). As a result, my advice is to decide which difficulty level you are aiming for from the above list, and to choose either the Drakes/Khalifate (they currently lack a mainline campaign) and get it extensive playtesting if you really want to make a mainline campaign. From your mention of the Silver-Mage scenario, it seems that you want to feature advanced tactics, which should be used sparingly in mainline, but are perfectly acceptable/encouraged in the add-on server.
DISCLAIMER: I am not on the Wesnoth DevTeam or the maintainer of any of the current mainline campaigns. This is all drawn from my experience with the current mainline campaigns, and therefore could be completely inaccurate.

[gnombat]

-All mainline campaigns use default factions, occasionally with a few custom units.

...

A great plot, while helpful to get a campaign accepted as mainline seems to be secondary to the above concepts (IftU has one of the greatest plots ever, but it remains an add-on due to nonstandard factions--there are other great add-ons with excellent plots that are not mainline as well).

It's probably good idea to stick mostly to standard factions for mainline campaigns - for example, I suspect that a campaign which is set on a different world from Irdya/Wesnoth and uses completely different factions would not be accepted for mainline. However, I think the nonstandard units used in IftU make sense within the context of that campaign. I believe IftU was never mainlined because of the wishes of the author, not because it uses nonstandard factions.

[Aldarisvet]

2 Dugi

U are really very emotional person. I am(was) sure that subject question can't insult any person, at least as i see(saw) cituation. May be i was not right. Moreover im newcomer in forum and i dont know all underground about this.
If i unsulted u somehow, plz forgive me and lets stop our comminication cause it is obviouslly brings negative emotions to u.

[Aldarisvet]

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I am very interested in enjoying a good storyline that doesn't feel bumpy or forced because your heroes have to do certain stunts...

What about Amaranthine Stone? Good story and animations and ur heroes really can relax with level1, other units can do all works )

[Aldarisvet]

2 iceiceice

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Maintaining a campaign takes a fairly small amount of time, but regularly over years -- there's only so much time and interest people have for it.
There's surely a significant political component to getting a campaign mainlined, but that's the practical barrier.
I think it's a little silly to take the point of view "I'm going to make a mainline-quality campaign, but maintanence... is an afterthought." If *you* aren't interested in maintaining it, and planning to do so, or to find someone to do so, that more or less means its not mainline quality, afaict.

Taken, thx, but i never said that i rejected maintaining. First a good campaign needed )
Anycase i am planning that creating campaign will require a lot of time, probably a year. The problem is not in coding, but in thinking. I already thinking for a month about it, and just yesterday create a graphics for 1st hero in Paint.NET, using compilations from 2 units. Last summer i finished creating original folding kick-scooter, was making it for 1.5 year and thinking took MUCH more time then using tubes and instuments. Pity i am too lazy for now to patent it. But i am skating on it with my sons on the streets and it goes not worse then industrial-made scooters. Actually, its better.

[iceiceice]

'Political'? You mean like people should enjoy interacting with you, because you depend on their testing, feedback, art etc?

I should admit that I really have no idea about how decisions are made about mainlining campaigns.

All I meant when I wrote that was, I think its not as simple as "X on the dev team has agreed to maintain this campaign, therefore it can be mainline now." I think there would be some sort of group decision process as well.

[Elvish_King]

create a graphics for 1st hero

Maybe it is a good idea posting your idea or your images in a new thread that the other forum users can see how good it is and if it has a chance getting added to mainline.

[nuorc]

First a good company needed ) ...
Anycase i am planning that creating company will require a lot of time, probably a year.

Just for clarification: do you mean 'company' or 'campaign'?

[Iris]

@Aldarisvet:

Hi, and welcome to the forums! I get the sense that Dugi did not necessarily mean to get into a heated discussion about egos and whatnot. It’s important to keep in mind that this is an international forum and not everyone speaks English as their first language; add to that the fact that tone is relatively hard to convey in written language over the Internet and it’s no surprise that misunderstandings may happen. As a matter of fact, we urge our users to be friendly and polite to each other and use clear language instead of txtspk-like abbreviations to communicate. This way the forums can be a fun and productive environment for everyone!

(Also, please make more use of the Edit button next to your post for adding content to it, and the Quote buttons in the post editor when replying. It gets somewhat confusing to read a discussion thread with consecutive posts by the same author.)

[Aldarisvet]

What the problem with add-ons server is that for me it looks more like trash can. Not cause of actually trash is there but cause u really have to dig there to find what u like.
From add-ons list u can get no information about campaign except small picture and the name of campaign, at least as i see. And i dont want to install something before getting idea what is it.
I was using Wesnoth Units Tree on this site to get some information about campaigns, lucky there is Unit Tree for add-ons, so u can get some idea about campaign. This Campaign Unit Tree especially good for observing all custom units for ur own purpose, so if u find appropriate custom unit there, u can install add-on to get its images.

2 nuorc
I meant 'campaign' not 'company' of course, i edited my previous post.

[Aldarisvet]

2 Elvish_King

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Maybe it is a good idea posting your idea or your Images in a new thread that the other forum users can see how good it is and if it has a chance getting added to mainline.

I think that for beginning i finish at least first 2 levels before i show it to the people.
And really i dont want people look on my creation through the prism that i am pretending on something.
By creating topic with such subject i just wanted to know the rules how some campaign may be included to mainline, not proclaiming that i am so good to success. However i really want to.

[Ravana]

Addons have description too.

Picture is usually not about campaign since only core files can be used there.

Download count is something to look though.

[nuorc]

From add-ons list u can get no information about campaign except small picture and the name of campaign, at least as i see.

Try the 'Description' button.

Personally, usually a discussion in the forum gets my attention and I then try the add-on.

[Xara]

I suggest you to try making a multiplayer campaign. Currently the only mainline content is the multiplayer version of the Legend of Wesmere, and it still has many bugs. So a good multiplayer campaign would definitely fill in the hole.