Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

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loonycyborg
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by loonycyborg »

Dave wrote: - We want to drive more experimentation and rewarding of new ideas in Wesnoth2. We want to try new game mechanics. New approaches to presenting storyline. New graphical effects. In Wesnoth1 there has been a problem where the amount of prestige associated with a developer is how long they have been with the project (seniority/tenure) and how many commits they have. Newer contributors have struggled with not feeling like they are "core developers" or can effect change. I want to change this with Wesnoth2. I'm not sure we have all the answers on how to change this, but one component is building it using a technology where contributors can try things out without having to rely on a C++ developer to implement things for them, and where things can be modularized better.
Why did you bring up seniority/tenure? It takes a long time and effort before you could become an effective core contributor, nonetheless new active C++ contributors that do non-trivial changes keep appearing, so I'm pretty sure there are no artificial barriers here. Trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist is a sure way to actually break things.
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by Andrettin »

Dugi wrote:Very few people can draw it well. The others have to rely on frankensteining, recolouring and small touches. This means that many art contributions are rejected for being low quality, add-ons are bashed for having lots of 'bad frankensteins', many units don't get animated because the people who've made them only made the baseframes, ignoring the problem that they're the only ones with the ability to create an animation Jetrel would not reject. Wesnoth's percentage of animated units is going down on the long term. 3D could be a redemption.
Using 3D models would make Wesnoth lose a lot of its feel. To be honest, I'd rather have non-animated pixel art units than 3D models. And I'm not sure that your argument that pixel art is more difficult to do than animated 3D models is actually true.
Also, 3D art can also look very artistic, not all games have low polygon fixed function shaded models.
None of those looks as good as pixel art to me :(
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by Dugi »

@Andretting
Seems you love pixel art over anything else. Wesnoth must be your only haven considering that most 2D games have 3D rendered sprites. That wesnoth2 plan has shaders, that would spoil your pleasure too I guess.
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by Andrettin »

Dugi wrote:@Andretting
Seems you love pixel art over anything else. Wesnoth must be your only haven considering that most 2D games have 3D rendered sprites. That wesnoth2 plan has shaders, that would spoil your pleasure too I guess.
That's not really true; there are plenty of pixel art games out there (i.e. Rogue Legacy). IMO shaders are fine; having 3D graphics though would change the feel substantially.
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by skeptical_troll »

I look forward to try out the new mechanic, I had a quick look at the document and I have the general impression that the game would be closer to a traditional RPG game, although some elements like buildings and ranged attacks may add strategic variety (which is the direction I would personally prefer). It is certainly too early to judge it, but I am a little concerned that this 'critical hit' system will make planning more difficult, generating rare 'strong' fluctuations instead of more regular ones, or in other words that the battles are won/lost depending on when/where the critical hits happens.

One thing I'd like to know though is whether 'wizard' should be taken literally, in the sense that all leaders are spell-casters, which would be quite a strong constrain on story characters.
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by Tad_Carlucci »

To my mind, 3D games get so lost doing the 3D side of thigs, they forget the game side.

I know people spend a lot of time in front of the screen playing whatever is the latest FPS. But I think the main reason for that is "flow" and not so much "game". Walk here, do this. Walk there, do that. It's all rather rote. So players give up on the game entirely and go for PvP. But there's no game there. In PvP it's all about being an early arrival and buffing sooner than the noobs. That's why cheating is so rampant: if you don't cheat, and were not there first, you don't have a chance.

That means games like Wesnoth will never get the hype. Without immersive 3D, they don't have nearly as strong a "flow" effect. And without the privately owned, long-term character to buff, there's no after-market and no cheating.

Games like Wesnoth may not get the media hype, but, over time, they present a much more welcoming environment. That's why Wesnoth is still around. That's why we still talk about Civilization. And that's why the larger gaming community is constantly, breathlessly awaiting the next version of <whatever>.
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by Bitron »

IMO it has some aspects of Magic: The Gathering. You are a Wizard and you have your spells wich allow you to cast magical attacks or summon new creatures.

It is certainly too early to judge it, but I am a little concerned that this 'critical hit' system will make planning more difficult, generating rare 'strong' fluctuations instead of more regular ones, or in other words that the battles are won/lost depending on when/where the critical hits happens.
Agree with that. I really like the Idea avoiding those missing-only-attacks like it happens in Wesnoth1 at times, but I am afraid, even if is has a very low chance to happen, double-damage is a bit over the top.
maybe 150% of average damage would do it as well.
Or maybe it stays variable and depends on the unit. Rouges for example could have a higher krit-damage than a mage with his/her staff.

Nevertheless, im quite curious about this project. Acutally its quite obvious that it wont be as good as wesnoth at the beginning. It took wesnoth more that twelve years be be what it is now, it's not that fair to expect it to be better than wesnoth1 right from the beginning.
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by TheWhiteKnight »

I must say I am with mixed to bad feelings about that.. Basically, I believe this project will take time from the developers and all the responsible persons to maintain the original Wesnoth if the games go as a separate ones.. On the other side, if that version takes over, we may lost the current Wesnoth as we know it.. And for player like me, that is with the game almost from the start in 2003rd either way is not good..
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by Temuchin Khan »

Bitron wrote:IMO it has some aspects of Magic: The Gathering. You are a Wizard and you have your spells wich allow you to cast magical attacks or summon new creatures.
I agree. However, I do think there could be a way to implement this system without forcing every character to be a wizard. For example, non-magic users could have "skills" and "manuals" instead of "spells" and "spell books."
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by ForestDragon »

with such a diffence from the game mechanics, i doubt that we should make it 'Battle for Wesnoth 2' but rather something like the existing game called 'WTactics' which is a different game, but in the wesnoth universe. we could apply the same principle, and in the result, we'll make a new game, without offending 'Battle for Wesnoth' players/UMC creators/community
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by Xara »

As the design document suggest, IftU story will never become mainline.
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by Bitron »

ForestDragon wrote:with such a diffence from the game mechanics, i doubt that we should make it 'Battle for Wesnoth 2' but rather something like the existing game called 'WTactics' which is a different game, but in the wesnoth universe. we could apply the same principle, and in the result, we'll make a new game, without offending 'Battle for Wesnoth' players/UMC creators/community
Totally agree with it.
With the thought of "need to keep it wesnothian" it may stay not more than an Idea with potential, cut of by the label of wesnoth.
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by ForestDragon »

Bitron wrote:
ForestDragon wrote:with such a diffence from the game mechanics, i doubt that we should make it 'Battle for Wesnoth 2' but rather something like the existing game called 'WTactics' which is a different game, but in the wesnoth universe. we could apply the same principle, and in the result, we'll make a new game, without offending 'Battle for Wesnoth' players/UMC creators/community
Totally agree with it.
With the thought of "need to keep it wesnothian" it may stay not more than an Idea with potential, cut of by the label of wesnoth.
yeah, if we just reuse some bfw art, but keep it not as a bfw-ripoff, but a game with a new name, and probably even universe
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by Bitron »

What about height, levels on the battlefield?
It was once discussed in the forums for wesnoth, but declined because it would have been to much of recoding.
When they actually code a Wesnoth 2 or what ever this will be in the end, this would be something I would like to see in it. It would alter the strategic aspect a lot I guess, Like Bowmen lurking at the edge of some hills, shooting down some melees with an height-bonus on their attacks or some think like that..

EDIT: Another think that may could be re-thought is the scale. In Wesnoth I understand a unit as a batallion of the specific type of unit. One hex is not a piece of some square meters but one or even to squaremiles of land, would, mountain, whatever.
If there are Wizards, summoning units... are they atually summon like a hundred of Fighters at once (as one unit) or are they summon one specific fighter who's fighting on their sides?
That would make much more sense to me if its about summoning, not recruiting.
So then it might be reasonable to think about rescaling the maps, that One unit is actually a person, one hex is about a few square meters.
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Re: Wesnoth2, Wesnoth, Inc, and other things

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

TheWhiteKnight wrote:I must say I am with mixed to bad feelings about that.. Basically, I believe this project will take time from the developers and all the responsible persons to maintain the original Wesnoth if the games go as a separate ones.. On the other side, if that version takes over, we may lost the current Wesnoth as we know it.. And for player like me, that is with the game almost from the start in 2003rd either way is not good..
While I understand your concerns, at the moment I don't believe there is any cause for concern, based on the attitudes of the current main developers (other than Vultraz).
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