To Lands Unknown 3.9

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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shevegen
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.2 Beta - now on GitHub!

Post by shevegen »

Pretty cool art. Who had that idea of this blue and red combination? Was that
inspired from some other place? If not then huge props whoever came up with
it initially.

> Wish me luck, because I am going to need it

I think even if you don't finish this is still pushing the best campaign to be even
better. It packs in a LOT of creativity.

(Not related to this here, but I always wondered a bit - my two ~favourite
campaigns are these desert/arabic night style ones. I always forget the other
one with those big wyverns ... and strictly speaking to Lands Unknown isn't
only "arabic" in style, e. g. that scenario where some hydra-like things came
up... but what I wonder here is whether other campaign STYLES can be as
interesting. For instance, I always hated cave campaigns ... no idea if I am
the only one but I can not think of any cave-centric campaign that would
be as interesting on a global view as such. No idea why ...)
secretspacepolice
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.2 Beta - now on GitHub!

Post by secretspacepolice »

love it.
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inferno8
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.2 Beta - now on GitHub!

Post by inferno8 »

shevegen wrote: October 9th, 2021, 7:16 pm Who had that idea of this blue and red combination? Was that
inspired from some other place? If not then huge props whoever came up with
it initially.
It is a fairly common "trope" in pop-culture. When I was designing characters for TLU, I thought it would be interesting to create a female character who had a dual personality to spice things up. Summoners from Era of Magic already had units like Ho'rhami and Dharma'rhami, so the only thing left at that time was to merge these two distinctive units into one superior magical being - Rashti'rhami. It turned out to be a really good decision and now Rashti is considered the main TLU character by many fans.
If you're interested, see these 'tvtropes' articles for more in-depth analysis: Red Oni, Blue Oni Split Personality
shevegen wrote: October 9th, 2021, 7:16 pm my two ~favourite
campaigns are these desert/arabic night style ones. I always forget the other
one with those big wyverns
You probably mean "Oath of Allegiance" by Kwandulin. Good choice ;)
shevegen wrote: October 9th, 2021, 7:16 pm I always hated cave campaigns ... no idea if I am
the only one but I can not think of any cave-centric campaign that would
be as interesting on a global view as such.
Yeah, cave levels can tire even an experienced player out. The fact is, it is extremely hard to create a good, entertaining cave scenario. There is one such scenario in TLU and I've put a lot of effort to make it enjoyable, but still I am not satisfied enough. I think the biggest problem with such levels is scale and a tendency to design them as complex mazes. I had to reduce Ka-Gatta's map length by half and make a large cavern with a straight path leading to the exit to overcome many issues with that kind of scenario. A cave-centric campaign? Very challenging, almost impossible, imo. You'd have to scale things down a lot and/or implement unique gameplay mechanics/tricks to make it enjoyable.
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egallager
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.2 Beta - now on GitHub!

Post by egallager »

inferno8 wrote: October 10th, 2021, 8:45 am
shevegen wrote: October 9th, 2021, 7:16 pm I always hated cave campaigns ... no idea if I am
the only one but I can not think of any cave-centric campaign that would
be as interesting on a global view as such.
Yeah, cave levels can tire even an experienced player out. The fact is, it is extremely hard to create a good, entertaining cave scenario. There is one such scenario in TLU and I've put a lot of effort to make it enjoyable, but still I am not satisfied enough. I think the biggest problem with such levels is scale and a tendency to design them as complex mazes. I had to reduce Ka-Gatta's map length by half and make a large cavern with a straight path leading to the exit to overcome many issues with that kind of scenario. A cave-centric campaign? Very challenging, almost impossible, imo. You'd have to scale things down a lot and/or implement unique gameplay mechanics/tricks to make it enjoyable.
Yeah event TEG, which is supposed to be a cave-centric campaign, has to include a bunch of surface scenarios to keep things fresh.
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ForestDragon
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.2 Beta - now on GitHub!

Post by ForestDragon »

inferno8 wrote: October 10th, 2021, 8:45 am If you're interested, see these 'tvtropes' articles for more in-depth analysis: Red Oni, Blue Oni Split Personality
Yeah, tv tropes is a pretty good site. There's even a page for wesnoth: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... ForWesnoth
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egallager
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.2 Beta - now on GitHub!

Post by egallager »

ForestDragon wrote: October 11th, 2021, 9:28 am
inferno8 wrote: October 10th, 2021, 8:45 am If you're interested, see these 'tvtropes' articles for more in-depth analysis: Red Oni, Blue Oni Split Personality
Yeah, tv tropes is a pretty good site. There's even a page for wesnoth: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... ForWesnoth
The "Headscratchers" page even led to something being changed (I think?): https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... ForWesnoth
Screen Shot 2021-10-11 at 15.18.40.png
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inferno8
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.3

Post by inferno8 »

To Lands Unknown 3.3 is now available!

This is a major release. It incorporates changes from 3.2 betas + tons of new stuff 8)

Important: this version is available only for Battle for Wesnoth 1.16! Steam users: your Steam client should upgrade BfW automatically from 1.14 to 1.16 once the new version of the game is out (which is going to happen within hours).

TLU 3.3 includes the following features (note that some of them come from 3.2 beta, which was only available for BfW 1.15.x and was played by a few testers at that time - I am listing them too for your convenience in case you never touched BfW 1.15 and upgraded directly from 1.14 to 1.16):

An interactive world map screen
3.3_map.jpg
Now TLU comes with brand new world map, which not only looks good, but also "keeps track of your progress". Found a cool magical sword during your journey? Now it will be visible next to the map! Finally got a Jinni? A shiny golden lamp will also be visible there. In TLU 3.3 the map also shows borders of nations and their emblems, so players can familiarize themselves more with the geographical setting of the campaign. For more information follow this link.

New and improved portraits
3.3_portraits.png
One of the biggest additions in 3.3 is the new set of portraits for some key characters. Rashti got a completely new look. The same goes to Almathis and Dedylos. Believe it or not, this was the toughest part of the 3.3 development.

Improved multihex terrain visuals
3.3_multihex.jpg
The key TLU feature also received a huge update. Enjoy the overhauled 2.5D terrain for many scenarios. I am especially proud of the new Sky Kingdom map. if you want to see an advanced procedural 3D rock shader (combined with displacement modifiers, normal maps and metaballs) in Wesnoth, now you can!

Improved story art
3.3_storyart.png
Another big 3.3 addition - almost all story images have been replaced with brand new 16:9 variants. I literally spent weeks drawing these and I am really happy with the results. Hope you will enjoy them as much as I do.

Icons for equipped artifacts
artifact_icons.jpg
artifact_icons.jpg (50.98 KiB) Viewed 1940 times
Now you can easily tell which unit has a certain item equipped just by looking at a map or your recall list. If a unit has multiple items equipped, all of them are listed just above that unit's head. What's more, one particular item even has a special counter showing you how many charges it has left before it becomes completely depleted.

Portraits of various collectible items
3.3_artifacts.png
As the name suggests, all collectible items in the campaign have "portraits" now (high-res images of them). This little addition may seem not a big deal, but it makes collecting them much more interesting in my opinion.

Many scenario improvements and fixes
Almost all scenarios received various additions ranging from new sound effects to balancing changes and additional challenges. For a full list of these changes see the changelog or discover them by playing the campaign!

What's next?
I never thought 2021 would be so productive for TLU. It looks like after 12 years of BfW modding I am still in a good shape to create stuff which can fry you cpus once again ^_^
At the moment TLU still requires a few graphical improvements (especially better portraits for other characters). Also it would be nice to have story images for all [part]s, but that's of low priority at the moment.
So what's next? I've been reading a lot lately about the 'cores' feature of BfW. It would technically allow me to create a total conversion mod for this game, with a custom main screen, default units replaced with those from EoMa and default campaigns replaced with TLU (and other additional campaigns in the future). The vision of going a step further with my projects is really tempting, that's why I am going to run some experiments first and see how far I can go with these 'cores'.

Will you create new campaigns like TLU in the future?
I would love to. That's why I can't wait to try the aforementioned 'cores' feature. If I am right, it will allow me to expose TLU more, by replacing the default era with EoMa. It would be really cool to have "your own Wesnoth" and EoMa is probably the only add-on which is advanced enough to soon match default standards (especially in terms of animations). If a possible EoMa/TLU core turns to be a success, I might think about creating new stuff for this game once again. But if not, then damn it, so many people have been asking me this question in the header, so I guess I have no choice and will soon create something new, but on a much smaller scale :P So yeah, let's hope everything turns out well and we will live long enough to see the continuation ;)

Full changelog:

Code: Select all

Version 3.3
- General
	* replaced old 4:3 story images with brand new 16:9 images
	* the world map show borders of nations with their emblems now
	* overhauled mulithex terrain graphics for scenarios: 08, 17, 19
	* added portraits for collectible artifacts
	* added the collar recall visual counter displaying number of charges left in form of an overlay
	* added a campaign background image
	* added portrait for the narrator
	* changed story music in some places
	* improved dialogs in various places

- Scenarios
	> scenario 00 - Prologue:
		* gave the Gate Guardian a name
		* improved the gameplay mode selection message
	> scenario 04 - Southern Nations:
		* improved terrain visuals
		* improved the gold carryover information
	> scenario 07 - Dome of Elementents:
		* when Instructor describes Ultimate Beings, they are shown on screen
	> scenario 08 - Ka-gatta:
		* information about Dimensional Gates appears after acquiring one, not after leveling it up
	> scenario 09 - Goddess of All Rhamis:
		* improved terrain visuals
		* disabled the Spear Guardian recall animation
	> scenario 10 - Chaos:
		* added abyssal sound effects when the portal is active
		* added missing objectives
	> scenario 17 - Siege of Kharos:
		* re-enabled advancements for Great Warlocks
		* massively reduced gold for all sides
	> scenario 18 - City of Light:
		* improved terrain visuals
	> scenario 16 - Defense of Saffaros:
		* removed the main badass event
	> scenario 19 - Sky Kingdom:
		* improved terrain visuals
		* added 4 Golden Mages protecting the portals
		* changed terrain layout to match new multihex image
		* massively reduced player's income
	> scenario 20 - Skydock:
		* when Guru teaches Mehir the teleportation spell the screen fades to black for a moment
	> scenario 23 - Ruins:
		* improved terrain visuals
		* improved Jinni advice

- Units
	* added new portraits for Rashti
	* added new portraits for True Rashti
	* added new portraits for Almathis
	* added new portraits for Dedylos
	* improved Rashti's description
	* added a flash when Rashti halves merge with each other
	* Rashti is healed when her halves merge with each other
	* removed Mehir's damaging aura and slowing aura AMLAs

- Code
	* fixed incorrect unit id preventing Rhami'Kais from advancing when equipping the Spear of Rhami artifact upon recall
	* removed incorrect unit modification utilizing 'overlays' key
	* replaced deprecated ai code
	* removed a deprecated key in [about]

- Translations
	* updated the raw translation file
	* updated the Polish translation
Enjoy! :)
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secretspacepolice
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.3

Post by secretspacepolice »

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS
Thaurin
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.3

Post by Thaurin »

I just learned of this add-on campaign and that these multi-hex scenarios are possible with BfW! This is pretty awesome!

And I think this "core" feature could really bring something to the table as a total conversion.
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inferno8
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.3

Post by inferno8 »

To Lands Unknown 3.3.1 is now available!

This release fixes a visual glitch where multihex terrain was missing for some players and requires the most recent version of "To Lands Unknown Resources pt. 1 v1.4".
If TLU 3.3 works for you, you don't have to download this new version.

Also I've managed to reduce the size of the aforementioned "Resources pt. 1" add-on by 22% (I just replaced all .tif images with jpgs and pngs). There is a chance BfW will support webp format in the future. If that happens, I'll be able to reduce the size of TLU up to 77%.

Apart from these technical changes, scenario 15 received a few dialog tweaks made by ForestDragon. Thanks! :)

Full changelog:

Code: Select all

Version 3.3.1
- General
	* replaced tif images with jpg and png file formats to improve compatibility

- Scenarios
	> scenario 15 - Abyssal Rebellion:
		* improved dialog

- Translations
	* updated the raw translation file
	* updated the Polish translation
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swangdoodles
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.3.1

Post by swangdoodles »

Hi. Thanx for the fix. This should help for players using the flatpak builds on Linux.
shevegen
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.3.1

Post by shevegen »

> There is a chance BfW will support webp format in the future. If that happens, I'll be able to reduce the size
> of TLU up to 77%.

This would be pretty cool, in particular for those with slower connection speed.
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inferno8
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.3.1

Post by inferno8 »

Hello TLU fans. I hope you enjoy the latest version of the campaign ;) Today I decided to talk about fan art! As you probably know TLU has been around for quite some time. Since its initial release more than a decade ago it has become an inspiration to many players and content creators. Yesterday one of TLU fans from Germany sent me a few very interesting drawings made by his colleague "GoldenPeggy". They depict two important scenes from the campaign and are drawn in a unique style. I love these and I am delighted to share them with you here :D
IMG_20200519_0001_small.jpg
IMG_20200519_0002_small.jpg
But that's not all. That TLU fan not only showed me these pictures, but also sent me a link to a video with his ...fully voiced playthrough of the last two TLU scenarios! :shock: He voiced it together with his friends and they even applied awesome sound effects to make everything immersive! (Rashti sounds supernatural for example, like a being from a completely different world). Unfortunately the whole voice acting is in German, so English players may find it difficult to understand, but it is fun to watch nonetheless :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPagDm-H9Xk

It would be awesome to have TLU fully voiced one day, especially that Battle for Wesnoth supports things like audio playback for messages ;) Once all dialogs for the campaign are complete, I'll definitely consider implementing voice acting for the add-on with the help of the community :)

Dear TLU/EoMa fans, I love fan art, so if you have anything you'd like to share, I encourage you to do so! These can be pictures, novels, comics, videos etc. They don't have to be of high quality - I'll appreciate every little thing from you. You can post them here in this thread or send me a private message :) Any form of TLU fan art will surely brighten my day and inspire me to make cool new things in the future! :)
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.3.1 - big new update coming soon!

Post by inferno8 »

Hi all! It's been a month since the major release of TLU 3.3, but I am already working on a next huge update for you! And if all goes well, it will be ready this December! (3 big TLU updates this year?! Are you nuts?! - Yes! :Awesome: )
tlu-3.4-promo.jpg
As you know each major version of TLU came with lots of improvements and new content:
TLU 3.1 offered a unique "badass" gameplay mode with an alternative story progression, dialogs and events.
TLU 3.2 featured a vastly improved "interactive" world map screen.
TLU 3.3 brought overhauled story art and better portraits for some characters.

For 3.4 I plan an ultimate overhaul of 3 scenarios (including completely redesigned multihex terrain layouts, animations and effects as well as rewritten dialogs). For example one of dialog-only scenarios is far more interactive now and filled with many interesting npcs you can talk to, while the other one has a new absolutely mind-blowing animation and is packed with interesting conversations between brand new characters. ForestDragon is involved in the works, so expect high quality writing ;)

Stay tuned for more news. This winter belongs to TLU 8)
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Tezereth
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Re: To Lands Unknown - 3.3.1 - big new update coming soon!

Post by Tezereth »

Oh yeah, 2021 is a great year.

TLU become even more a masterpiece 3 time in a row, that’s incredible!
Occasional Sprite animator, and maker of the following add-ons :
Warfare of far lands (1.16)
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