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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by josteph »

name wrote: March 29th, 2019, 7:04 pm That is a really good point, if I recall correctly, the player never gets to control saurian units in any existing mainline campaign. Add that to the fact there are only four drake units to recruit and it makes quite a lot of sense to add the two saurians units as proper recruitables at some point after the drakes reach the great continent.
It may be a bit of a tangent, but I'd like to say that I don't think having a multitude of available unit types is necessarily a good thing. In general, having multiple types available makes a campaign easier, since the player is more likely to have a good counter to the AI. More subjectively, THoT has very few playable unit types (five recruitable types, six lvl2 types available from them), and I like that because it makes it easier for me to manage my recall list along the campaign. (You know, that "Do I need to feed XP to a Shaman in this scenario, or do I have enough Druids already?" long-term planning thing.)

I'm not against adding Saurians unconditionally: chaotic skirmishers/healers/magicians can be pretty useful, and avoiding binary events is good campaign design in general. I just don't think we should make the recruit list longer for the sake of making it longer.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by name »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 30th, 2019, 12:07 am However, there are plenty of non-sentient creatures around that they could kill and eat instead of humans, who are capable of speech and reasoning and, furthermore, are more capable of fighting back than most of the non-sentient prey.
No, there are most definitely not plenty of any creatures to eat, given the population pressures. That's a key plot point that inspires Galun to leave the archipelago in the first place and it is made quite clear during the earliest levels.

Speech and reasoning are not feelings and a sensation of pain. Do you think you have the right to eat a person if his/her IQ is low enough they can not speak or reason better than a bovine or a pig? Do you believe that speech and human-level reason are necessary to suffer pain or horror? The truth is we humans in general can bring ourselves to use other species as meat because they are other species (and I admit this as a non-vegetarian/non-vegan). There is not a magic IQ/EQ value cut off point where it becomes wrong or right. Our own instincts and culture determine when it is good or evil. That is why there are japanese eating whale bacon and african tribes that prey on ethnic pygmies (that oddly enough they do not see as human) as well as various great apes and lower primates.

The drakes, an obligate carnivore with their own set of instincts and culture and only a distant biological relation to us, deems themselves better than us just as we deem ourselves better than our own prey and livestock (that typically have an EQ about 1/7 of ours, if you want to go by that). Probably they are wrong about us, just as we probably are wrong about our highly convenient estimation of cetaceans and other groups of animals in real life.

As for humans fighting back, on the islands of morogor the drakes seem to be much better armed, organized, trained and possibly more numerous. Further, it could be that they prefer dangerous prey. Losing drake hunters to their prey actual relieves the population pressure they are feeling so acutely, so such a practice actually makes perfect practical sense on the morogor archipelago.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 30th, 2019, 2:28 pm Hmm, I see. Honestly, that's really problematic as well in my opinion and I'd be interested in seeing those kinds of references removed. But that's off-topic for this thread.
Those "references" should most certainly not be removed.

Not only because your working to outright censor the artistic expressions of those mainline campaign authors, for failing to live up to a puritanical moral code, would be wrong in real life...

But also because the predatory nature of the orcs speaks to their motivation and instincts with regards to other species. If instead, they see humans, et al, as the same species or of similar moral value, then they are guilty of wanton genocide throughout the mainline timeline.

At least if they are like predatory animals or understandably see us as not the same species, we can cut them some slack, the same way we in real life do for tigers or bears allowed to survive in wilderness parks. However, if they knowingly conduct attempted and successful genocides against human beings, as they do from one mainline campaign to the next, eventually the player will conclude that "turnabout is fair play". Perhaps a DiD style ending for SotBE would be the only satisfying conclusion for most then.


Back on topic, mainline orcs eat other races, so drakes eating other races before reaching the great continent is not unprecedented. Only if they continued this practice might it conflict with the depiction of drakes we see in later campaigns. Honestly, WoV's depiction of drakish cultural evolution is on trend with how they appear later in HttT and THoT (testy territorial neutrals until they feel their hand has been forced) and NR (reciprocating an act of salvation with the establishing of an alliance).

josteph wrote: March 30th, 2019, 5:32 pm It may be a bit of a tangent, but I'd like to say that I don't think having a multitude of available unit types is necessarily a good thing. In general, having multiple types available makes a campaign easier, since the player is more likely to have a good counter to the AI. More subjectively, THoT has very few playable unit types (five recruitable types, six lvl2 types available from them), and I like that because it makes it easier for me to manage my recall list along the campaign. (You know, that "Do I need to feed XP to a Shaman in this scenario, or do I have enough Druids already?" long-term planning thing.)
I fully agree in general. In fact I found HttT to have far too many, far too different units, to the point it becomes almost tedious in ways. I ended up enforcing a self-limit on what kinds of things I could recruit after a while.

But for WoV in particular, I found that during the later missions I missed not having the saurian units. I did very much like the drip-feed of recruitable units, starting with only gliders and burners, then getting fighters, and finally clashers. It made for interesting challenges and injections of excitement with each new recruitable. So I feel introducing saurian recruitables at the right time would keep this going and provide reasonably more strategies to approach the latter levels with.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

(tl;dr at the bottom if you don't want to read my ranting)
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm No, there are most definitely not plenty of any creatures to eat, given the population pressures.
The mechanics of the first scenario belies your statement. If nothing else, there are plenty of rabbits.
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm Do you think you have the right to eat a person if his/her IQ is low enough they can not speak or reason better than a bovine or a pig?
Obviously not, though I'll add that IQ isn't really a good measure of intelligence. I'll also add that any human, no matter how unintelligent, can speak or reason better than a bovine or pig. Any human that can't speak or reason better than a bovine or pig (assuming they exist) has reasons that have nothing to do with intelligence.

Furthermore, your focus on intelligence is wrong from the start. It's not intelligence that makes the difference, but wisdom – sapience. A lot of animals are quite intelligent – corvids, elephants, parrots, rats, probably more. Even pigs are pretty intelligent from what I understand. Intelligence without wisdom gives you a robot, or perhaps a termite colony or something. Probably any large carnivorous or omnivorous species will have intelligent prey. The problem arises when you start writing them with sapient prey.
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm Do you believe that speech and human-level reason are necessary to suffer pain or horror?
Obviously not. You might be confusing sapience (wisdom, reasoning, ability to apply knowledge) with sentience (ability to feel, including pain and fear of course). Pain and horror aren't something you can avoid in hunting, no matter what your prey is. Of course, meat-eaters could find ways to prevent pain and horror in their prey, but hunting certainly isn't the way to do that. So really, this question is irrelevant. Having sentient prey is not an issue; indeed, it's expected. Animals are pretty much all sentient. The problem is having sapient prey.
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm The truth is we humans in general can bring ourselves to use other species as meat because they are other species (and I admit this as a non-vegetarian/non-vegan). There is not a magic IQ/EQ value cut off point where it becomes wrong or right. Our own instincts and culture determine when it is good or evil. That is why there are japanese eating whale bacon and african tribes that prey on ethnic pygmies (that oddly enough they do not see as human) as well as various great apes and lower primates.
Just because something exists, that doesn't mean it's acceptable or right. I'm genuinely questioning your sanity at the invocation of nameless african tribes, but the case of Japanese whaling is something I was already aware of. Again, IQ has nothing to do with it. I don't know much about EQ (emotional quotient, right), but I suspect it has little relevance too. You're arguing from the wrong premise to begin with.
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm The drakes, an obligate carnivore with their own set of instincts and culture and only a distant biological relation to us, deems themselves better than us just as we deem ourselves better than our own prey and livestock (that typically have an EQ about 1/7 of ours, if you want to go by that). Probably they are wrong about us, just as we probably are wrong about our highly convenient estimation of cetaceans and other groups of animals in real life.
It's not that you're wrong about this premise – it's true that drakes have a different starting point as obligate carnivores, and that would shape their view of the world. In theory, this could be done well, drawing a picture of the drakes coming to realize that other species have value as something other than food. But, to be blunt, it's not done well in the first scenario. Here you have a picture of drakes as the villainous slavemasters who release them and hunt them for sport. And, to be blunt again, it's not necessary to their characterization to have them eat humans. Sure, it could be done well, with a lot of effort and argument. Or, you could just remove the references, and make something just as good but without any of the problems, with less effort. Furthermore, there's a difference between a passing reference to having eaten humans in the past and actually portraying it in a scenario. If you really think it's necessary for them to have eaten humans, fine, drop a passing reference here and there, but don't make a scenario all about it unless you want to put in the huge amount of effort to really sell it and do it well.
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm As for humans fighting back, on the islands of morogor the drakes seem to be much better armed, organized, trained and possibly more numerous. Further, it could be that they prefer dangerous prey. Losing drake hunters to their prey actual relieves the population pressure they are feeling so acutely, so such a practice actually makes perfect practical sense on the morogor archipelago.
You have a surprisingly practical and reasonable argument here, but I find it difficult to buy it as an actual motivation for the drakes. From an objective external standpoint, sure, it makes sense that drake hunt the more dangerous prey so that the lost hunters can relieve population pressure, but from an internal drakish standpoint, I can't imagine they'd be deliberately throwing their lives away like that.
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm Those "references" should most certainly not be removed.

Not only because your working to outright censor the artistic expressions of those mainline campaign authors, for failing to live up to a puritanical moral code, would be wrong in real life...
Hah, now you drop the censorship bomb. I didn't think I was arguing with someone ignorant of basic definitions, but since I was clearly wrong, here's the definition of censorship:
Wiktionary wrote:The use of state or group power to control freedom of expression or press, such as passing laws to prevent media from being published or propagated.
Other references: Mirriam-Webster, Oxford Living Dictionary

Censorship has absolutely nothing to do with this. I genuinely believe that those references make the campaigns worse, and wish to get rid of them in order to improve the campaigns. Obviously, it's not something that will happen without some consensus, but I'm certainly not alone in finding those references to be uncomfortable.
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm But also because the predatory nature of the orcs speaks to their motivation and instincts with regards to other species. If instead, they see humans, et al, as the same species or of similar moral value, then they are guilty of wanton genocide throughout the mainline timeline.
Obviously if orcs are guilty of genocide and it's passed of as "well, they're orcs, so it's expected", then that's another thing that needs to be improved about those campaigns. I don't think orcs are stupid enough not to realize that their enemies can think and reason just like them. Indeed, if they were so stupid, they would have never joined the Knalgan Alliance, right?
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm But for WoV in particular, I found that during the later missions I missed not having the saurian units. I did very much like the drip-feed of recruitable units, starting with only gliders and burners, then getting fighters, and finally clashers. It made for interesting challenges and injections of excitement with each new recruitable. So I feel introducing saurian recruitables at the right time would keep this going and provide reasonably more strategies to approach the latter levels with.
There's also the possibility of adding saurian loyals (perhaps as an emissary from the empire or something) but not making them recruitable. I'm not saying this is a better idea, only that it could be something to consider.

---

tl;dr

The depiction of drakes eating humans is problematic. It's not problematic because humans are intelligent or sentient beings. It's problematic because they are sapient beings. The best option is to remove it. The second option, which is tons more work, is to find a way to portray it in a non-problematic manner.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by gnombat »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 30th, 2019, 11:12 pm
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm No, there are most definitely not plenty of any creatures to eat, given the population pressures.
The mechanics of the first scenario belies your statement. If nothing else, there are plenty of rabbits.
Keep in mind WINR when it comes to mechanics. That is, there may appear to be lots of edible animals running around in the first scenario, but from the text of the story, it is clear that there really isn't enough to go around (indeed, that's one of the themes of the entire campaign):

"Each cycle it became slightly more difficult to feed our hatchlings."

"I'm concerned for all of us. The next hatching is near and prey grow scarce."
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by Pentarctagon »

Having some of the first dialogue in the first scenario casually mention that the Drakes are hunting and eating enslaved humans is not a great intro, regardless of anything else.

edit-
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm Those "references" should most certainly not be removed.

Not only because your working to outright censor the artistic expressions of those mainline campaign authors, for failing to live up to a puritanical moral code, would be wrong in real life...
That is a flatly absurd statement, in multiple ways.

However
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 30th, 2019, 11:12 pm Hah, now you drop the censorship bomb. I didn't think I was arguing with someone ignorant of basic definitions, but since I was clearly wrong, here's the definition of censorship:
is also uncalled for.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by BTIsaac »

Pentarctagon wrote: March 31st, 2019, 4:33 am That is a flatly absurd statement, in multiple ways.
Actually, I'm tempted to agree with him. But those particular lines don't seem to really add anything. If it was an actual plot point, maybe, but they just seem to be there to sound hardcore or something.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by name »

Pentarctagon wrote: March 31st, 2019, 4:33 am
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm Those "references" should most certainly not be removed.

Not only because your working to outright censor the artistic expressions of those mainline campaign authors, for failing to live up to a puritanical moral code, would be wrong in real life...
That is a flatly absurd statement, in multiple ways.
Then what is this now? Why is this already being pushed through on the issue tracker without any discussion on the forums for a sweeping change to multiple mainline campaigns that have been around for most of the time wesnoth has existed? And what does it mean that the issue is assigned to version 1.14.8; is that assigned for an actual discussion or for those parts of the campaigns to be quietly deleted? This is not just a grammatical clarification or spelling fix or something similarly small and objectively positive.

This feels very underhanded to me and yes it does qualify as censorship (by the same definitions linked to and quoted above.)
BTIsaac wrote: March 31st, 2019, 9:02 am
Pentarctagon wrote: March 31st, 2019, 4:33 am That is a flatly absurd statement, in multiple ways.
Actually, I'm tempted to agree with him. But those particular lines don't seem to really add anything. If it was an actual plot point, maybe, but they just seem to be there to sound hardcore or something.
It is a plot point for most of those quotes and most of those campaigns that contain them. For example, it is the orcs' waging of total war and genocide against the peoples of the Green Isle that drives them to attempt a risky travel across the ocean with every person they can find. The orcs come up short when it comes to intelligence, so they need to make up for it through their force of numbers and sheer brutality to remain a credible threat and an antagonist that drives much of the action of these campaigns. Those lines suddenly slated for censorship help paint such a picture for a primary antagonist and are applied well in context of their larger campaigns, with all the other dialogue and story art and general themes therein.

And why should we expect the moral puritanism to stop here, what about slaughter of unarmed civilians as depicted in Lord Bob's masterful story artwork of tRoW? Orcs engaging in war crimes is "problematic" and makes some people "uncomfortable", better remove it too, I guess!
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by Pentarctagon »

name wrote: March 31st, 2019, 2:26 pm
Pentarctagon wrote: March 31st, 2019, 4:33 am
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm Those "references" should most certainly not be removed.

Not only because your working to outright censor the artistic expressions of those mainline campaign authors, for failing to live up to a puritanical moral code, would be wrong in real life...
That is a flatly absurd statement, in multiple ways.
Then what is this now? Why is this already being pushed through on the issue tracker without any discussion on the forums for a sweeping change to multiple mainline campaigns that have been around for most of the time wesnoth has existed? And what does it mean that the issue is assigned to version 1.14.8; is that assigned for an actual discussion or for those parts of the campaigns to be quietly deleted? This is not just a grammatical clarification or spelling fix or something similarly small and objectively positive.

This feels very underhanded to me and yes it does qualify as censorship (by the same definitions linked to and quoted above.)
BTIsaac wrote: March 31st, 2019, 9:02 am
Pentarctagon wrote: March 31st, 2019, 4:33 am That is a flatly absurd statement, in multiple ways.
Actually, I'm tempted to agree with him. But those particular lines don't seem to really add anything. If it was an actual plot point, maybe, but they just seem to be there to sound hardcore or something.
It is a plot point for most of those quotes and most of those campaigns that contain them. For example, it is the orcs' waging of total war and genocide against the peoples of the Green Isle that drives them to attempt a risky travel across the ocean with every person they can find. The orcs come up short when it comes to intelligence, so they need to make up for it through their force of numbers and sheer brutality to remain a credible threat and an antagonist that drives much of the action of these campaigns. Those lines suddenly slated for censorship help paint such a picture for a primary antagonist and are applied well in context of their larger campaigns, with all the other dialogue and story art and general themes therein.

And why should we expect the moral puritanism to stop here, what about slaughter of unarmed civilians as depicted in Lord Bob's masterful story artwork of tRoW? Orcs engaging in war crimes is "problematic" and makes some people "uncomfortable", better remove it too, I guess!
Changes to Wesnoth are not required to be discussed on the forums, plain and simple. Moreover, what is ultimately made part of mainline Wesnoth is decided by the people who contribute to it. If you want to argue that something should remain a part of mainline, then you should argue for it on its merits, since claiming something should stay on the basis that removing it is censorship only makes me take everything else you post on the topic less seriously. Similarly, calling our concerns "moral puritanism" and the like only makes you come across as an ideologue rather than someone interested in holding a reasoned conversation.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: March 30th, 2019, 11:12 pm The depiction of drakes eating humans is problematic. It's not problematic because humans are intelligent or sentient beings. It's problematic because they are sapient beings. The best option is to remove it. The second option, which is tons more work, is to find a way to portray it in a non-problematic manner.
I don't see this as a problem. Is there room for improvement in the first scenario? Probably.
name wrote: March 30th, 2019, 9:12 pm But for WoV in particular, I found that during the later missions I missed not having the saurian units. I did very much like the drip-feed of recruitable units, starting with only gliders and burners, then getting fighters, and finally clashers. It made for interesting challenges and injections of excitement with each new recruitable. So I feel introducing saurian recruitables at the right time would keep this going and provide reasonably more strategies to approach the latter levels with.
I'm leaning toward adding the Suarians as standard but with different dialog based on the easter egg condition.
I did change it so players get some fighters in S01, but that is a good point, so I might revert it back to only burners & gliders for S01

Seems reasonable to depict the orcs eating people as part of the characterization of them being bad guys, LotR: Two Towers does it with Uruk-hai grunts that want to eat the hobbits Pippin and Merry.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

name wrote: March 31st, 2019, 2:26 pmsweeping change
Tweaking a few lines here and there is the exact opposite of a "sweeping change".
name wrote: March 31st, 2019, 2:26 pmThis feels very underhanded to me
I don't see how it can be underhanded when it's all done out in the public view.
name wrote: March 31st, 2019, 2:26 pmThe orcs come up short when it comes to intelligence,
This is, frankly speaking, an offensive statement.

Pentarctagon already said everything that needs to be said about how wrong-headed your arguments are, so I won't bother repeating it.
SigurdFireDragon wrote: March 31st, 2019, 5:10 pm Seems reasonable to depict the orcs eating people as part of the characterization of them being bad guys, LotR: Two Towers does it with Uruk-hai grunts that want to eat the hobbits Pippin and Merry.
For the benefit of forum-people, I'll quote my response to this on the GitHub issue:
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: Wesnoth is not Lord of the Rings. In Lord of the Rings, the orcs are actually elves that have been corrupted by the power of Morgoth; and the Uruk-Hai are a magical mix between orcs and humans. In Wesnoth, orcs are an entirely separate species. So any argument from the basis of Lord of the Rings is meaningless.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

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Pentarctagon wrote: March 31st, 2019, 2:52 pm Changes to Wesnoth are not required to be discussed on the forums, plain and simple. Moreover, what is ultimately made part of mainline Wesnoth is decided by the people who contribute to it.
The people who wrote these mainline campaigns did contribute to mainline wesnoth. So did all of the people who enjoyed and then contributed bug and grammatical fixes and translations to them for all these years. Many more still enjoyed them even though they did not have contributions to make. Extremely few of these people will see an issue briefly appear on the tracker before getting committed to a minor stable release. Whether intended or not it works as de facto secrecy.

A sweeping change to the characterization of a primary antagonist across several long beloved campaigns should not be handled with as little thought and care as would be needed for a clear and simple typo fix.
Pentarctagon wrote: March 31st, 2019, 2:52 pm If you want to argue that something should remain a part of mainline, then you should argue for it on its merits, since claiming something should stay on the basis that removing it is censorship
I have in fact argued for keeping the dialogue based on its merits. But 'arguments' for removal that amount to censorship are wrong for mainline wesnoth. Here are those definitions of censorship again:

"The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security."
-- Oxford Living Dictionary

"to examine in order to suppress (see suppress sense 2) or delete anything considered objectionable, also :
to suppress or delete as objectionable"

-- Merriam-Webster

"The use of state or group power to control freedom of expression or press, such as passing laws to prevent media from being published or propagated."
-- Wiktionary
Pentarctagon wrote: March 31st, 2019, 2:52 pm Similarly, calling our concerns "moral puritanism" and the like only makes you come across as an ideologue rather than someone interested in holding a reasoned conversation.
I never called your concern moral puritanism. Your only statement of--

"Having some of the first dialogue in the first scenario casually mention that the Drakes are hunting and eating enslaved humans is not a great intro, regardless of anything else."

...does not qualify as such as far I can see. It seems to be a stylistic suggestion to make the player's introduction to the drakes of Morogor less jarring. This is valid, even if I do not agree with it myself after playing through the rest of the campaign and seeing how the drake offshoot culture evolves througout the journey to and over the great continent. (Tangentially, if you have not already, I do encourage you to play through the rest of the campaign to form your own view on this.)


However... This is far and away a different topic from retroactively rewriting the mainline orcs and long mainlined popular campaigns that feature them. I do feel extremely strongly about that and its handling thereof.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 1st, 2019, 4:35 am
name wrote: March 31st, 2019, 2:26 pmThe orcs come up short when it comes to intelligence,
This is, frankly speaking, an offensive statement.
Are you serious...? Offensive to whom, a fictional species?

@Pentarctagon: This is the kind of thing I was referring to as "moral puritanism".
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by name »

SigurdFireDragon wrote: March 31st, 2019, 5:10 pm I'm leaning toward adding the Saurians as standard but with different dialog based on the easter egg condition.
I did change it so players get some fighters in S01, but that is a good point, so I might revert it back to only burners & gliders for S01
Cool, I look forward to testing with these changes if they make the cut. I hope to find the time for another WoV play through in the near future; already several versions have passed since I did so last. You are certainly making fast progress, please keep up the great work!
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by josteph »

name wrote: April 1st, 2019, 6:10 pm I have in fact argued for keeping the dialogue based on its merits. But 'arguments' for removal that amount to censorship are wrong for mainline wesnoth. Here are those definitions of censorship again:
Name, it is not censorship. It is simple a case of disagreement about what wesnoth's lore should be. We may decide that in lore orcs eat humans, and we may decide that in lore orcs don't eat humans, but we are not required to pick the former option. Now, let's please get back to discussing WoV.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by Pentarctagon »

name wrote: April 1st, 2019, 6:10 pm I have in fact argued for keeping the dialogue based on its merits.
Then stick with doing only that, please. Regardless of whether your arguments are actually right or wrong, you frame them in ways that are unnecessarily polarizing and completely counter productive, and I have no intention of letting this thread get further derailed. Even if you feel that others aren't doing the same, that's no reason to do it yourself.

Anyway, this is also the last I'm going to post in response to that particular topic. I hope I don't have to address it further.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

name wrote: April 1st, 2019, 6:10 pm A sweeping change to the characterization of a primary antagonist across several long beloved campaigns should not be handled with as little thought and care as would be needed for a clear and simple typo fix.
  1. It's not sweeping, like I mentioned before.
  2. No-one has ever suggested that it would be handled with the same amount of thought and care as a clear and simple typo fix.
  3. They're a significant antagonist in many cases but they are certainly not an irredeemably evil villain, so they should not be portrayed as having traits that some might see as irredeemably evil.
name wrote: April 1st, 2019, 6:10 pm
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: April 1st, 2019, 4:35 am
name wrote: March 31st, 2019, 2:26 pmThe orcs come up short when it comes to intelligence,
This is, frankly speaking, an offensive statement.
Are you serious...? Offensive to whom, a fictional species?
Well sure, but that's not the point. I believe it's offensive to pretty much anyone of any race who has ever been denigrated as being lacking in intelligence, of which I believe you'll find there are many. Even if it is factually true in the setting (which I would dispute), it's still offensive. Fiction isn't some alien thing totally divorced from reality. Fiction reflects reality and in turn influences it.
Author of The Black Cross of Aleron campaign and Default++ era.
Former maintainer of Steelhive.
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