New faction: Order of defenders.

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TheGreatRings
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New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by TheGreatRings »

Here's an idea that I've had for a while now, and which I'd like to put in to practice if day-to-day life ever gives me the time. It's a new faction based on the idea of an order of Peacekeepers holding allegiance to no one crown, but dedicated to fighting evil in any form, along the lines of the Knights of the Round table or the Jedi. They would have a combination of existing units and special units belonging specifically to the order. Some of these might include:

Pike man: infantry armed with a long spear, good against cavalry.

Ranger: the field agents and scout of the order, able to heal and possessing stealth abilities. Skilled with both swords and bows.

Guardian: combine the abillities of a white and red mage, exchanging mastery of any one power for wider versatility.

Knight of the Order: Very fast unit which acts as a commander for the order.

This vauge outline is about as far as I've got with designing this faction. I'm basically posting this to see whether:

1. Any one thinks the basic premise has potential as a faction, and
2. Weather such a concept has been proposed before and laughed out of town, as it were. :wink:

If any one thinks the concept isn't totally rediculous, I may try putting it into practice, time permitting.
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TrashMan
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Re: New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by TrashMan »

I for one like it, but then again I'm always a sucker for the good/holy/light side guys. :P
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Trau
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Re: New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by Trau »

Allow me to play as the bad guy for a second:

This idea is totally ridiculous.

Now I don't mean to flame (or rather, I don't mean *just* to flame?) but the thing is, a backstory does not a faction make.

It's all good and fun to have a backstory or theme in a faction, but you need more than that. What does your faction bring to the table that Wesnoth doesn't have that will motivate people to download/play it? How does your faction work as a system and how does it feel when you're playing it? Does its system/feel differ from something that can be normally found in Wesnoth? Does it differ in a good way? How will you implement it? Have you completely thought out how this faction will mesh into its era? Which era would it be, anyways? One you build an era from the ground up or make this faction compatible with the Wesnoth factions?

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, come back when you've given some thought as to how this faction would work from a gameplay perspective.
Sarudak
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Re: New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by Sarudak »

*smack*

Be nice Trau... He is a noob to the forum obviously.

Now he does make a lot of good points though. But I think the biggest one he missed is where will the artwork come from? Most factions die, not from lack of a good idea, but from lack of artwork. So unless you have an artist in your pocket. This faction will probably suffer the same fate unless you learn to do the art yourself.
peet
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Re: New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by peet »

OK, mister great rings...

If you want to make a faction (and there are lots of people who do) then you need to start making some art. Artwork is by far the biggest job when making a faction and the people who are already good at it usually have their own projects.

So far your ideas aren't especially original. Pikemen already exist. Wizards that both have good fire attacks and can heal already exist (try the Aragwaith Warlock line, for example). Horse units with leadership already exist.

The idea of your "Ranger" with a good archery and sword attack but who is also a healer is one I like. Haven't seen that anywhere yet.

Anyway, get drawing!

Peet
TheGreatRings
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Re: New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by TheGreatRings »

Sorry it took me so long to respond, I've been without computer access for a week.

Okay, I'm sorry if I didn't provide enough information to go on. I said from the beginning that this was a very rough and undeveloped idea, and I was basically asking whether the concept was worth developing. By the way, where are the already existing pikemen? They're not in any of the campaignes that I've played. That's really anoying, seeing as I actually thought I'd come up with a new idea for a unit there. :(

Hey TrashMan, I'm a sucker for good guys too.

Hey Trau, :shock: :cry: :evil:

Anyway, like I said this is a very preliminary outline, and I'll post more(such as artwork) when I've had time to devellope it in more detail. Don't expect much progress for the next month though; I'm still trying to graduate and its taking up rather more of my time than I like.
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Aethaeryn
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Re: New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by Aethaeryn »

The Great Rings wrote:By the way, where are the already existing pikemen? They're not in any of the campaignes that I've played. That's really anoying, seeing as I actually thought I'd come up with a new idea for a unit there. :(
Pikemen are a lvl 2 of the Spearmen, a really common unit (in the Loyalist faction in MP and recruitable or at least encountered in most campaigns).
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TheGreatRings
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Re: New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by TheGreatRings »

Sorry. :oops: I never use spearmen myself. I prefer a mix of mages/bowmen and cavalry. Plus lots of healers.
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Trau
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Re: New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by Trau »

Simply call your pikemen "Order Pikemen"

Wesnoth has the same named units like that all the time. Spearmen/Goblin Spearmen, Elvish/Dwarvish/Drake Fighter, and that kinda junk.
peet
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Re: New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by peet »

Rings, if you want to see what units are already in the game, try http://units.wesnoth.org/

All the mainline stuff plus some UMC is here.

Peet
TheGreatRings
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Re: New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by TheGreatRings »

Thanks, I'll look it over. Hopefully, I can someday post more on this idea once I have something more substantial to show.
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Re: New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by megane »

I'm certainly no expert, but AFAICT when it comes to designing a faction, the first thing you should do is not say "hey, let's have this unit and that unit," but rather to consider what the faction's theme is going to be. The Northerners have lots of cheap, throwaway units; Aragwaith units are fragile, but deal absurd amounts of damage; Celestials are expensive, but have abilities that allow them to work together and buff each other. Figure out what the overall feel of your faction is going to be, and then create units and so on to match that. Are the Defenders going to be fast or slow, aggressive or, well, defensive? Do they do well in certain terrains? What abilities do they bring to bear? What weaknesses do they have?

(As a side note, consider that a healer who's hiding will have his position completely revealed as soon as he heals anybody.)
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TheGreatRings
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Re: New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by TheGreatRings »

Well, mainly the Order would be optimised to fight unded. the idea was that a great war took place in which Wesnoth was being overwelmed by undead hords, and so a group of knights and mages got to gether to more or less create a private army to deal with the crisis. Beyond that, there's two ways I could take this faction, each of which would be greatly different from the other. The first would be similar to the Jedi or Knights of the Round table, or maybe LOTR rangers. These would be expensive but powerful units who would act in small groups far from relief. The second version would be a highly professional private army with a lot of different speciallized units (mostly cheaper).

Which do you prefer? :D
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Velensk
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Re: New faction: Order of defenders.

Post by Velensk »

It sounds like the very concept of the faction is unbalanced. If they are so specialised in killing undead, then they are probably not going to be that good for ordinary foes, or conversly their balanced against everyone except undead, who would have absolutly no chance to beat them.

What do you intend to do with this faction?
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