1.16 Campaign: A Rough Life - version 1.2.9

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Orcish Shyde
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Re: Campaign: A Rough Life

Post by Orcish Shyde »

I noticed that Jacques' unit changes still haven't been tweaked to avoid RIPLIB; this is not a major issue, however. What does bug me a little is looking in the code to find it deliberately zeroes your experience on shifting from Rogue/Assassin to Trapper, and from Ranger/Huntsman to Battle Commander; however, it didn't stop me playing the campaign the first time around, so it can't be that big a problem. :lol2:

As for why I'm actually posting... Seeing that Jacques loses his miraculous ability to go 3 sand hexes in a turn did bug me, as did him getting only 30% defence in caves when the final scenario is a cave, as did the human commander sprites not looking good next to mainline ones, as did him getting -10% to arcane when The Long Night of Shadows confronts him with lots of it. In an effort to fix these four problems, I attach a .cfg file containing three derivative units, one of which is intended to replace the Battle Commander (complete with using ranger-bow.png for an arguably sucky leading frame).

After this, I'll probably mess with the code to enable the various other name changes Jacques is supposed to go through but doesn't. Probably. If you want me to.
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Turuk
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Re: Campaign: A Rough Life

Post by Turuk »

Orcish Shyde wrote:I noticed that Jacques' unit changes still haven't been tweaked to avoid RIPLIB; this is not a major issue, however. What does bug me a little is looking in the code to find it deliberately zeroes your experience on shifting from Rogue/Assassin to Trapper, and from Ranger/Huntsman to Battle Commander
Ah, well you may have noticed since I have posted no updates or notes that I have made any changes.... I have not had time to fiddle with this lately.
Orcish Shyde wrote:Seeing that Jacques loses his miraculous ability to go 3 sand hexes in a turn did bug me, as did him getting only 30% defence in caves when the final scenario is a cave, as did the human commander sprites not looking good next to mainline ones, as did him getting -10% to arcane when The Long Night of Shadows confronts him with lots of it. In an effort to fix these four problems, I attach a .cfg file containing three derivative units, one of which is intended to replace the Battle Commander (complete with using ranger-bow.png for an arguably sucky leading frame).
You can indeed do the spiting and what not if you like, as I am not good at it at all and so I did not touch it. As to the unit.cfg and this...
Orcish Shyde wrote:After this, I'll probably mess with the code to enable the various other name changes Jacques is supposed to go through but doesn't. Probably. If you want me to.
Most of this is dependent of whether or not the player has leveled the character by a certain scenario or a certain event in the campaign, so there is a whole mess of code that checks for that and adjusts dialogue and events accordingly. That is why I really have not touched Jacques in fixing the campaign, as it would involve rewriting most of the scenarios. You are welcome to if you like.
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Orcish Shyde
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Re: Campaign: A Rough Life

Post by Orcish Shyde »

Turuk wrote:You can indeed do the spiting and what not if you like, as I am not good at it at all and so I did not touch it.
What spriting? I just programmed it to use a pre-existing Ranger frame for leadership, and left the rest to the fact it's based off the Ranger. xD
Turuk wrote:Most of this is dependent of whether or not the player has leveled the character by a certain scenario or a certain event in the campaign, so there is a whole mess of code that checks for that and adjusts dialogue and events accordingly. That is why I really have not touched Jacques in fixing the campaign, as it would involve rewriting most of the scenarios. You are welcome to if you like.
Messing with the unit changes appears to be as simple as changing the unit he morphs into - hardly a major rewrite, so I'll put my money where my mouth is and insert it appropriately some time this week. The name changes will probably take more effort but hey.
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Turuk
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Re: Campaign: A Rough Life

Post by Turuk »

Orcish Shyde wrote:Messing with the unit changes appears to be as simple as changing the unit he morphs into - hardly a major rewrite, so I'll put my money where my mouth is and insert it appropriately some time this week. The name changes will probably take more effort but hey.
I am not claiming it is overly complex, but consuming time that I do not really have to spare. You are welcome to make the changes and I will upload them in a new version.
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Orcish Shyde
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Re: Campaign: A Rough Life

Post by Orcish Shyde »

OK, the code for Jacques turning into a 'Sand Trapper' works now, as do the capabilities he's meant to have. Hence there's a tarball of the relevant stuff attached here, since thoroughly messing with Jacques' unit changes hits almost every scenario after "Unrest in the Ranks".

EDIT: As an encore, I fixed the bug whereby Kyoko is cloned in "Confronting the Traitor"; this probably means I should put back the code that weakens her during "More Hard Labour" since it felt a little odd to have her reach level 2 when we're informed she's in dire need of medical attention. Also, "Confronting the Traitor" now recalls your loyal units, replacing them only if you don't have them - if you want this aspect removed, then I'll remove it.

EDIT EDIT: Amusingly, if Jacques levels into a Battle Commander without actually killing something, he gets an extra attack in his new form; however, this isn't my fault.
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Re: Campaign: A Rough Life

Post by Turuk »

Orcish Shyde wrote:OK, the code for Jacques turning into a 'Sand Trapper' works now, as do the capabilities he's meant to have. Hence there's a tarball of the relevant stuff attached here, since thoroughly messing with Jacques' unit changes hits almost every scenario after "Unrest in the Ranks".
Yup, that would be the point I raised.
Orcish Shyde wrote:EDIT: As an encore, I fixed the bug whereby Kyoko is cloned in "Confronting the Traitor"; this probably means I should put back the code that weakens her during "More Hard Labour" since it felt a little odd to have her reach level 2 when we're informed she's in dire need of medical attention. Also, "Confronting the Traitor" now recalls your loyal units, replacing them only if you don't have them - if you want this aspect removed, then I'll remove it.
You can leave it in there, I will take it out myself. My original understanding of the campaign, further clarified by Jacques_Fol, is that this is story is about the main character and so the supporting units that pop in and out in the first few scenarios are inconsequential until later in the campaign.
Orcish Shyde wrote:EDIT EDIT: Amusingly, if Jacques levels into a Battle Commander without actually killing something, he gets an extra attack in his new form; however, this isn't my fault.
Well, if the player could not level them on their own, it would make sense that they would need him a bit more powerful to encourage them to use him...
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Re: 1.6 Campaign: A Rough Life - v. 0.9.5

Post by Jacques_Fol »

A bout of flu was all it took to send me to revisit Wesnoth and ARL and try to port the latter to the new version of the former. Still with me? Excellent!

So, with a little help from the wmllint and some meddling on my own part, I managed to port the last 1.4 version I had on my computer (0.9.3, as updated and maintained by Turuk) to the 1.6 branch. It is still not completely bug-free and does not yet(!) take full note of all the helpful additions and comments listed in posts above, but it should be able to be played through.

Let me preface anything else by extending another thanks to Turuk who not only kept the campaign alive long enough to stir my coding appetite again but also improved it in important ways and graciously encouraged me to pick it up as well as extend by another scenario or two. I was also very happy to see another set of helpful comments by Orcish Shyde whose first set of encouragement was swallowed in last summer's forum crash but who still came back with more useful content. (It will all be noted in due time, although the unit transitions may first require some more porting wizardry.)

So now, for your perusal and improvement, here (=on the Add-ons server) is the "almost-final" iteration of the 1.6 branch version of A Rough Life, made available with the following disclaimer:

PLAYING

The game should be able to be played through without significant glitches, although an unsuspecting player may still want to play it on Easy. I have done it without too much hassle on Medium, while Hard is there for those who really like their challenges. There are a few minor coding bugs (see this thread for details), but nothing that should really spoil the fun.

Per request and ambition, one of the possible endings is receiving two more concluding scenarios compared to the previous version. The first of these (a minor act) has already been written, the second and last will presumably be done in the coming weeks.

WRITING & CODING

I have gone through all the scenarios and touched up the text a bit - tried to give a few more warnings or hints when needed, made a few corrections. Besides the coding bugs linked to above, the first priority will be to get the final scenario up and running.

The second priority will then be to tweak the gameplay experience, and this is where all your advice will come in handy. I will give a proper look to Orcish Shyde's suggestion as to the unit progression of Jacques, and would be happy to consider other offers of help with improving the code, maps, story, balance or (albeit highly unlikely) art. Some things need to be polished, others demand to be improved.

Finally, I also have a few concrete questions of my own that I will presumably be posing in the coming weeks to try and finetune it all.

CAVEATS & INVITATIONS

This is a story-driven campaign. If you like storytelling and don't mind reading slightly longer passages of text interspersed with action, you will hopefully enjoy it. If you're looking for battles that explore the nuances of BfW as a tactical game, it may not be your cup of tea.

Either way, you are most cordially invited to try it out, and please let me know what you think!
ydcl
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rough life bug

Post by ydcl »

Hi, I want to report a msg error concerning a unit type. When I'm trying to recruit there are none available. That is normal ?
Thanks
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Turuk
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Re: rough life bug

Post by Turuk »

Moved to the relevant thread.

In the future, you may want to post an error in a UMC in that campaign's actual thread. You also might want to give a bit more detail about the actual error you are referring to, like what unit you were trying to recruit, or even what scenario it was happening in...
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Jacques_Fol
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Re: rough life bug

Post by Jacques_Fol »

ydcl wrote:Hi, I want to report a msg error concerning a unit type. When I'm trying to recruit there are none available. That is normal ?
Thanks
As Turuk said, if you give me more detail, I'll try to give you a more exact response. As far as I can tell so far, is the problem just that you cannot recruit units in the first (few) scenarios?

If so, that is indeed intentional and a consequence of the story; in the first scenario, for instance, you only have those men available that came with you on the island. A similar reasoning applies through scenario 4 - but changes in scenario 5.

I hope this answers your question. In any event, thanks for taking the time to report it and I hope you enjoy the tale.
Jacques_Fol
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Re: RELEASE: 1.6 Campaign: A Rough Life - ver 1.0

Post by Jacques_Fol »

UPDATE (5/20): Having taken care of the most visible bugs and gotten the campaign to the state where it can be played from beginning to end with little or no hassle, I now declare it complete. Version 1.0 can now be downloaded from the Add-ons server.

UPDATE 2 (5/23): Having (hopefully) fixed two bugs spotted by Huston, version 1.0.2 has now been uploaded to the Add-ons server.

The remaining text below is from the post to version 0.9.8 a week ago but remains valid and is thus preserved. For a more concrete follow-up, the already-linked thread on the "Add-On Feedback" forum may also be used.

I have (almost fully) taken on board the wonderful idea by Orcish Shyde to mod special types for Jacques, i.e. Sand Trapper and Sand Ranger. As I also more or less managed to make use of zookeper's coding advice, the transitions between the types should now work (perhaps with an aesthetic hiccup or two).

Again, the campaign should be playable from beginning to end without crashes, although a number of minor bugs doubtless remain. I will be grateful for any reports and comments from those who have tried the campaign, including advice on how to fix the issues.

In the coming weeks (months?), I hope to polish the campaign as much as I can, and perhaps improve a few of its features. In any aspect of this, help would naturally be much appreciated. My own priority, apart from tackling the remaining bugs, is to polish the text.

In that respect, a question: are you bothered by the (length or number of the) conversations taking place in the scenarios? I usually find these things to add flavor to my own gaming experience and so didn't hold back. In fact, I thought of adding one or two more, and already added one in Scenario 11 (since already having characters called Fear and Loathing was too good to pass on).

In any event, I hope those of you who decide(d) to download the campaign will find it to be of amusement.
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CountPenguin
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Re: RELEASE: 1.6 Campaign: A Rough Life - ver 1.0.2

Post by CountPenguin »

how do you win the scenario where you have to kill the gryphon leader and the other one? i couldnt find the other leader so i cheated and unshrouded, only to find the scorpion queen in impassable mountains. how are you supposed to win?
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Jacques_Fol
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Re: RELEASE: 1.6 Campaign: A Rough Life - ver 1.0.2

Post by Jacques_Fol »

CountPenguin wrote:how do you win the scenario where you have to kill the gryphon leader and the other one? i couldnt find the other leader so i cheated and unshrouded, only to find the scorpion queen in impassable mountains. how are you supposed to win?
Greetings, CountPenguin! The answer to that you seek is lurking below:
A Cryptic Hint:
A Slightly Less Cryptic Hint:
A Straight-Up Spoiler Hint:
Whichever hint you use, however, if you're using a version prior to 1.0.1, you should either perform the Queen "quest" before tackling the gryphon (which is the easy way anyway, as your new friends made along the way might be helpful with that) or
Spoiler:
See this post for the reason for this bug. If you're using version 1.0.1 or later, it should no longer be an issue.

Hope this helps, and thanks for playing!
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Kelben
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Re: RELEASE: 1.6 Campaign: A Rough Life - ver 1.0.2

Post by Kelben »

Jacques,

I just start playing your campaign and I leveled the main character from a Thief to a Rogue in the first scenario. In the following ones, he is still a simple Thief.
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Turuk
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Re: RELEASE: 1.6 Campaign: A Rough Life - ver 1.0.2

Post by Turuk »

This is explained in the dialogue:
Story wrote:"Finally, his turn came. Weakened and debilitated from the long journey, feeling like all knowledge and experience had slipped away from him, he was taken ashore in a wondrous land, which to eyes unaccustomed to light seemed full of glistening golden sparkle. Jacques felt his spirits lifting as soon as he stepped on hard soil, but they sank again when, a few hours of tedious marching later, he and a few of his newfound friends were led into a cave and left open air behind them once more."
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