Aragwaith Unit Images 2.0

CaptainChaos · Post by **CaptainChaos** » March 2nd, 2007, 1:25 pm

I've gone roughly through this thread and realy like the artwork I've seen. This discussion lasts for about one and a half years now, and I wonder if it is indeed not possible, to include these units into the game in a decent way (be it as a new faction or not).

To everyone who is concerned about balancing: How do you intend to ever find out if these units are balanced or not, when you don't put them in the game? Lots of the "Heir to the Throne" scenarios have been balanced throughout the evolution of the game. Should therefore they have never been made? Lets try!

And the discussion about the art looking "Wesnothish" (how ever you call it) or not:
Lots of unit-icons have also improved over the time. And I would think, that the ones from, say, version 0.7 wouldn't look good besides those we (or you) have now. One example is in my opinion the gryphon. He has a movement animation, while most of the other units do not. So, shouldn't he have it, just because the others don't. So I suggest, just take it as evolution.

However, I do see the reason, that one should be able to recognize the units function to a certain degree by looking at the units icon. But in my opinion this is given, when you consider, that on the one hand you will be geting used to the units, so that you can associate them. And on the other hand you can very well distinguish the details, at least after having looked at the unit sheet and having read what they mean to show!

Now, is there any possibility in geting serious about this, or is it just an "academic" discussion? Are here any officials, who will say: "We will make a new faction in the game for these units/We will use the units as mercenaries, if you come up with the following reqiurements: ..." ?

Post by **irrevenant** » March 2nd, 2007, 7:58 pm

CaptainChaos wrote:I've gone roughly through this thread and realy like the artwork I've seen. This discussion lasts for about one and a half years now, and I wonder if it is indeed not possible, to include these units into the game in a decent way (be it as a new faction or not).

Agreed. We've just started a new 'unstable' branch - that seems to be the perfect time.

They shouldn't be added to Default era though, IMO. They aren't part of the mainland Wesnoth setting.

Post by **turin** » March 2nd, 2007, 11:31 pm

I've been lobbying for a long time for the inclusion of multiple eras (as in new units, not just "default" v. "age of heroes") in Wesnoth.

Post by **irrevenant** » March 3rd, 2007, 12:03 am

turin wrote:I've been lobbying for a long time for the inclusion of multiple eras (as in new units, not just "default" v. "age of heroes") in Wesnoth.

I totally agree. I'm just pointing out that (since we're at the start of a Dev-cycle) "the time is now!".

battlestar · Post by **battlestar** » March 3rd, 2007, 4:05 am

These units are great, would be a big waste if they just go to.. waste.

CaptainChaos · Post by **CaptainChaos** » March 3rd, 2007, 2:49 pm

So, what needs to be done?
Do you propose any systematic way, how to decide theire stats and their place in the game?

Post by **turin** » March 3rd, 2007, 4:12 pm

They're already used in several user-made eras (see the Imperial Era, the Extended Era, etc.) Just because they're not in mainline doesn't mean they're completely abandoned.

Sean · Post by **Sean** » May 14th, 2007, 9:25 am

I think it would be a tragic waste of such talent to not include them in the mainline Wesnoth shipment in some way. I, for one, would be glad to play them.

Post by **Maeglin Dubh** » May 14th, 2007, 12:49 pm

It's simple enough to download them from the UMC server....

Imperial (unbalanced) and Extended Eras both use them.

Weeksy · Post by **Weeksy** » May 14th, 2007, 5:55 pm

Would it be possible to get Extended Era included in a dev release? See how it goes, include warnings that it's not balanced, but let people play around with it for fun...

Sean · Post by **Sean** » May 14th, 2007, 7:33 pm

[quote="Maeglin Dubh"]It's simple enough to download them from the UMC server....
[quote]

Perhaps not so simple. I didn't even know about the extended eras until a few days ago, in spite of playing Wesnoth consistently. My friend was who even let me know about the extended era, but he had an incredibly degree of difficulty in actually finding where or how to download/get it. We ended up having the fortune of Weeksy observing our game and the poster above helped us understand the process behind getting and installing it.

It'll be very nice if it was more user-friendly.

At least, as a relative Wesnoth newbie with an entire group of friends who are also Wesnoth newbies, none of us was able to easily access this content to Wesnoth at all and if it wasn't for the community, we would have been completely lost and soon after, would have lost interest in anything extra. It was only sheer random luck of Weeksy(and who, mind you, was extraordinarily patient and understanding with us) happening to be in our game that helped us.

Imagine how many newbies would have just lost interest if they weren't this lucky?

Post by **Maeglin Dubh** » May 15th, 2007, 12:25 am

How exactly is a menu button right at the opening page of Wesnoth not user friendly?
"Get Add-Ons" .... Is there another way you think it should be phrased?

Extras may or may not begin to be packaged with Wesnoth, and we do have ideas on ways to streamline the UMC server itself, but getting to it shouldn't be a problem at all.

Sean · Post by **Sean** » May 15th, 2007, 1:05 am

As a newbie, the "Get Add-Ons" button initially confused me for a few reasons:

1) It tries to access a server titled "campaigns.wesnoth.org," leading me to the impression that I was getting campaigns instead of anything else.

2) More importantly, there's little description of what I'm getting. Loading it right now, I see an option to get "Great Race." Is it an MP RPG thing? Is it a campaign by that name? I can see the version number, the author, download size and number of downloads, but nothing tells me what it is.

Case in point:

When I started, I got "Defence of the Goblin" with the belief that it was a campaign - and quite hyped about it, since I love goblins. I imagined that any campaign based around them had to be completely awesome; so you could imagine my surprise when I realized that there wasn't a new campaign in my Single Player campaigns.

So, I assumed that I must have made an error and downloaded the file again from the server. Still nothing showed up - and nothing told me either that I was actually downloading something for MP. For all I knew(and I was a newbie that knew nothing of MP RPGs or the like), I was getting a mystery file that could be a virii. That possibility began to worry me.

I decided to try again, getting something with the label picture of a dwarf, figuring that it was a single-player dwarf campaign(something else that I was interested in). I remember it begin fairly massive, taking me a significant amount of time to download even once. I tried it three times.

Nothing showed up in my singleplayer campaign.

So I gave up. I assumed that the add-ons button either didn't work, my copy of Wesnoth didn't work, or that I wasn't smart enough to add new campaigns into my game. I put my time to playing the Default instead, which was fun, but I missed out a lot on the extras.

Perhaps I was just another idiot newbie, and I can totally believe that. But it would be incredibly nice if the add-ons had /some/ sort of in-game description for them beyond the name. If a pop-up came up after I double-clicked on an add-on, and told me what it was(along with a download confirmation), I think that I would have known that I was getting a MP map and I wouldn't have been confused.

Just a Wesnoth newbie's two cents.

Troy · Post by **Troy** » May 15th, 2007, 1:18 am

I agree with Sean, the "Get Add-Ons" button is confusing.
for beginners, that is.

I have played wesnoth for 2 years so it wasn't THAT confusing for me

but I still think it should be changed.

Post by **Maeglin Dubh** » May 15th, 2007, 1:22 am

scott, in the BWH thread wrote:4. Content type labels: Campaign server filters and sorts by campaigns, eras, unit packs, and map packs.