[General Feedback] Northern Rebirth: still mainline quality?
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[General Feedback] Northern Rebirth: still mainline quality?
Just some casual feedback/discussion about Northern Rebirth.
I'm returning to Wesnoth 1.18 after more than a decade away and playing through all the campaigns again. Dead Water was just mainlined when I left, so there's a lot of stuff I haven't experienced -- and it looks like Wesnoth has really come a long way since then! All the mainline campaigns are more polished than I remember: the new music is professional, the portrait art is phenonmenal, the additional animations add a lot to immersion, and even the writing seems to have improved.
When I hit Northern Rebirth (going chronologically), however, I am noticing a very sharp departure in style from all previous campaigns. The art is from a previous era -- but that isn't such a big deal, as Legend of Wesmere also has an older art style. More jarring is the writing and the scenario design. The writing is full of modern vernaculars and employs a great abundance of unusual techniques, such as the liberal use of capitalization and lots of these bracketed actions:
In terms of scenario design, I think the campaign is famous for being "very big" and "to-scale", which is a departure from Wesnoth's generally semi-abstract design philosophy. There are a lot of turns with lengthy queues of units just banging against each other in a chokepoint with minimum tactical finesse, which is a carthartic sort of feature often seen in UMCs but quite unusual for a mainline piece.
There's also a lack of polish in small details that seems particularly out-of-place amongst the new-and-improved campaigns. For example, the fact that we use ordinary peasant units and could therefore advance to Royal Guards while still struggling in the mines as a motley crew contrasts sharply with the treatment of a similar issue in Liberty, where custom units are used to make the setting much more consistent (even though the custom units are for flavour only).
All in all, I feel like Northern Rebirth kind of hit the breaks on my mainline campaign run and interrupted the immersion. Compared to all the shiny new mainline campaigns (except Winds of Fate, which is understandably lacking in polish due to its being so new), Northern Rebirth feels to me like it's from a different era of Wesnoth development.
I'm returning to Wesnoth 1.18 after more than a decade away and playing through all the campaigns again. Dead Water was just mainlined when I left, so there's a lot of stuff I haven't experienced -- and it looks like Wesnoth has really come a long way since then! All the mainline campaigns are more polished than I remember: the new music is professional, the portrait art is phenonmenal, the additional animations add a lot to immersion, and even the writing seems to have improved.
When I hit Northern Rebirth (going chronologically), however, I am noticing a very sharp departure in style from all previous campaigns. The art is from a previous era -- but that isn't such a big deal, as Legend of Wesmere also has an older art style. More jarring is the writing and the scenario design. The writing is full of modern vernaculars and employs a great abundance of unusual techniques, such as the liberal use of capitalization and lots of these bracketed actions:
Some details of the story seem inconsistent with the mainline lore or developed/executed in such an alien way that it doesn't seem to be from the same universe. An example would be the existence of the immortal white mages and liches -- they seem disconnected from all the existing lore on the undead (Wesfolks, Ardryn-Na's book, Illiah-Malal, Sagus and Asheviere) and the mages, both in style of characterization and backstory.(Stab)
What the...? (Gurgle)
(Trip) Oof!
(Giggle) Thank you, honey.
(Rolls eyes) Women!
Yes, if you would ever buy me a house! (Pouty face)
(Flap flap flap)
(Sheds a tear)
In terms of scenario design, I think the campaign is famous for being "very big" and "to-scale", which is a departure from Wesnoth's generally semi-abstract design philosophy. There are a lot of turns with lengthy queues of units just banging against each other in a chokepoint with minimum tactical finesse, which is a carthartic sort of feature often seen in UMCs but quite unusual for a mainline piece.
There's also a lack of polish in small details that seems particularly out-of-place amongst the new-and-improved campaigns. For example, the fact that we use ordinary peasant units and could therefore advance to Royal Guards while still struggling in the mines as a motley crew contrasts sharply with the treatment of a similar issue in Liberty, where custom units are used to make the setting much more consistent (even though the custom units are for flavour only).
All in all, I feel like Northern Rebirth kind of hit the breaks on my mainline campaign run and interrupted the immersion. Compared to all the shiny new mainline campaigns (except Winds of Fate, which is understandably lacking in polish due to its being so new), Northern Rebirth feels to me like it's from a different era of Wesnoth development.
Last edited by fishrose on April 30th, 2024, 4:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [General Feedback] Northern Rebirth: still mainline quality?
About NR:
Particularly found the controlling of more than 2 sides on a massive map annoying to the point of not playing it again.
Also, the dark branch of NR (was a choice in clearing the mines) was never done and then dropped.
There's one scenario "Settling Disputes" that's the subject of discussion since some claim that RNG heavily influences a win or defeat here.
A rework of NR had been proposed in year 2021, but the community reacted strongly in defense of the current one (with its flaws) so I have no motivation, time, or resources left to return to that. Ever again.
I will probably keep that version for myself (and only myself).
Two sides of the coin are: defense of a substandard nostalgia and reluctance of new vs new modernised campaigns.
I am personally not a fan of the large-scale battles of NR. I like the story but the design of scenarios just irk me.All in all, I feel like Northern Rebirth kind of hit the breaks on my mainline campaign run and interrupted the immersion. Compared to all the shiny new mainline campaigns (except Winds of Fate, which is understandably lacking in polish due to its being so new), Northern Rebirth feels to me like it's from a different era of Wesnoth development.
Particularly found the controlling of more than 2 sides on a massive map annoying to the point of not playing it again.
Also, the dark branch of NR (was a choice in clearing the mines) was never done and then dropped.
There's one scenario "Settling Disputes" that's the subject of discussion since some claim that RNG heavily influences a win or defeat here.
A rework of NR had been proposed in year 2021, but the community reacted strongly in defense of the current one (with its flaws) so I have no motivation, time, or resources left to return to that. Ever again.
I will probably keep that version for myself (and only myself).
Two sides of the coin are: defense of a substandard nostalgia and reluctance of new vs new modernised campaigns.
Northern Rebirth: still mainline quality?
my answer
Creator of "War of Legends"
Creator of the Isle of Mists survival scenario.
Maintainer of Forward They Cried
User:Knyghtmare | My Medium
Creator of the Isle of Mists survival scenario.
Maintainer of Forward They Cried
User:Knyghtmare | My Medium
Re: [General Feedback] Northern Rebirth: still mainline quality?
I've got a PR open that I've been meaning to work on for a few years now that's meant to improve NR's quality, but it's mostly focused on difficulty level rather than any of the points you mentioned about writing or art style: #6057
The main problem is that all the big battles make it pretty much impossible to test any changes to the campaign, or, at least, the amount of time it would take makes it too intimidating for me to want to do so...
The main problem is that all the big battles make it pretty much impossible to test any changes to the campaign, or, at least, the amount of time it would take makes it too intimidating for me to want to do so...
Wesnoth-related GitHub repos:
General mods collection, SotBEEE, AToTBWaTD, The Earth's Gut, A Little Adventure, FtF
Social media: Mastodon: @egallager@treehouse.systems, Steam: egallager
General mods collection, SotBEEE, AToTBWaTD, The Earth's Gut, A Little Adventure, FtF
Social media: Mastodon: @egallager@treehouse.systems, Steam: egallager
Re: [General Feedback] Northern Rebirth: still mainline quality?
I have finished Under the Burning Suns and concluded my mainline playthrough! Overall, it was an amazing experience - I was very much engaged and kept a record of each campaign history, renaming all the veteran characters and creating backstories for them (RIP the paladin who died protecting Haldric at Fallen Lich Point -- that was my very first level three death and I still remember him).
I did end up skipping Northern Rebirth, though, as well as its sequel Hammer of Thursagan (and Winds of Fate):
I started off playing on the easiest difficulty, but went up to intermediate by Liberty/Heir to the Throne. Mostly, I was playing for the story and the setting (and to enjoy the artistic assets) with less attention paid to combat or game mechanics, so maybe my opinion is related to my lack of strategic competence, but I found the 'expert' campaigns (like Northern Rebirth) to be generally less enjoyable.
Or maybe I'm just not a fan of dwarves and orcs lol. I did like Under the Burning Suns a lot more than Northern Rebirth and Son of the Black-Eye.
Maybe the expert campaigns appeal to different demographic groups/personalities/play styles/audience segments. People who focus on battles and on crunching numbers for a good strategy might like them. My playthrough was totally blind (i.e. no knowledge of any trigger event) with zero backtracking; I was okay with taking losses and living with the consequences of making blunders -- or even getting into dangerous situations on purpose for the sake of dramatic tension and storytelling (for example, I tried not raising walking corpses for as long as possible in the first scenario of Descent into Darkness).
For handling scale, I was really impressed by Eastern Invasion (which I understand had a massive update this version?). Even though it had some fairly big battles with multiple fronts, I think it went about it differently than Northern Rebirth. These had fairly well-defined local theatres without relying on obvious chokepoints; the open terrain increases the number of decisions the player has to make (there aren't many decisions to make at a chokepoint except how to shuffle units around), but the localized theatres make each decision more important -- when there are fifty units against fifty units, each unit and every decision about each unit becomes less important; but when there are five separate groups of ten-on-ten, each unit and every decision becomes important even though the overall scale of the battle remains unchanged.
For lore/writing/story, the expert campaigns felt generally less polished than the other ones -- maybe because the intended audience for expert campaigns tend to care more about strategy and gameplay than the story? Under the Burning Sun had some refined prose, but the tone was sometimes different from most mainline campaigns (for example, there were a few passages written in second-person like in a choose-your-own-adventure game), and there were a few lore inconsistencies (for example, it was established that elves aged rapidly shortly before they died and maintained their youthful grace before then, but older elves were described as 'moving slower' due to age in UtBS).
In my mind, I just consider Northern Rebirth/Hammer of Thursagan to be 'semi-canonical' or 'mythically true', in the sense that the start and the conclusion of the story happened generally as described (i.e. there was a slave named Tallin who founded a Northern Alliance outside of Wesnoth with the help of a dwarvish lord), but everything in between is grossly embellished or questionable hearsay (e.g. there never was a pair of immortal white mages). Like a bard's tale or gossip in a Wesnothian tavern about 'what's been going on up north'.
I did end up skipping Northern Rebirth, though, as well as its sequel Hammer of Thursagan (and Winds of Fate):
I started off playing on the easiest difficulty, but went up to intermediate by Liberty/Heir to the Throne. Mostly, I was playing for the story and the setting (and to enjoy the artistic assets) with less attention paid to combat or game mechanics, so maybe my opinion is related to my lack of strategic competence, but I found the 'expert' campaigns (like Northern Rebirth) to be generally less enjoyable.
Or maybe I'm just not a fan of dwarves and orcs lol. I did like Under the Burning Suns a lot more than Northern Rebirth and Son of the Black-Eye.
Maybe the expert campaigns appeal to different demographic groups/personalities/play styles/audience segments. People who focus on battles and on crunching numbers for a good strategy might like them. My playthrough was totally blind (i.e. no knowledge of any trigger event) with zero backtracking; I was okay with taking losses and living with the consequences of making blunders -- or even getting into dangerous situations on purpose for the sake of dramatic tension and storytelling (for example, I tried not raising walking corpses for as long as possible in the first scenario of Descent into Darkness).
For handling scale, I was really impressed by Eastern Invasion (which I understand had a massive update this version?). Even though it had some fairly big battles with multiple fronts, I think it went about it differently than Northern Rebirth. These had fairly well-defined local theatres without relying on obvious chokepoints; the open terrain increases the number of decisions the player has to make (there aren't many decisions to make at a chokepoint except how to shuffle units around), but the localized theatres make each decision more important -- when there are fifty units against fifty units, each unit and every decision about each unit becomes less important; but when there are five separate groups of ten-on-ten, each unit and every decision becomes important even though the overall scale of the battle remains unchanged.
For lore/writing/story, the expert campaigns felt generally less polished than the other ones -- maybe because the intended audience for expert campaigns tend to care more about strategy and gameplay than the story? Under the Burning Sun had some refined prose, but the tone was sometimes different from most mainline campaigns (for example, there were a few passages written in second-person like in a choose-your-own-adventure game), and there were a few lore inconsistencies (for example, it was established that elves aged rapidly shortly before they died and maintained their youthful grace before then, but older elves were described as 'moving slower' due to age in UtBS).
Yes, I think I'm okay with the general outline of the story as well -- exploring a minor population on Konrad's journey and the ripple effects of that journey is a great premise! And the idea of peasants/former slaves building a new society from scratch outside the borders of Wesnoth is interesting. I just didn't connect with the details of how that story was told -- with the lore-detached liches and the comic-relief immortal mages and so on. It works as a UMC but seems a bit strange for 'official content'.I like the story but the design of scenarios just irk me.
In my mind, I just consider Northern Rebirth/Hammer of Thursagan to be 'semi-canonical' or 'mythically true', in the sense that the start and the conclusion of the story happened generally as described (i.e. there was a slave named Tallin who founded a Northern Alliance outside of Wesnoth with the help of a dwarvish lord), but everything in between is grossly embellished or questionable hearsay (e.g. there never was a pair of immortal white mages). Like a bard's tale or gossip in a Wesnothian tavern about 'what's been going on up north'.
Oh! That sounds very interesting. I know it's a ton of work to maintain a campaign, but if you happen to just have a working version lying around, I'd love to play it.I will probably keep that version for myself (and only myself).