The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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cephalo
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The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by cephalo »

Finally after 8 months I'm releasing 1.0 of my single player campaign titled "The Library of Kratemaqht". It is an ancient story from the old continent, and is something of a prequel to Rise of Wesnoth. It comes from a time when dragons could still be found from time to time on the frontiers of human settlement. The dragons in this campaign are large and fully animated with about 400 frames each.

It is scenario complete, with just a few placeholder graphics waiting on a real artist who might be interested to polish them someday. I'd like to get some feedback on the gameplay, as I am not such a good Wesnoth player. Some of the scenarios might be too easy for some.

Let me know what you think!

Version history:
1.1.2 - Updated for Wesnoth 1.11, added a few more enemies to the first scenario and fixed some wmllint errors.

1.0.1 - fixed grammatical errors and some minor cosmetic issues.

1.0.0 - initial release
Last edited by cephalo on April 6th, 2013, 12:44 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Adamant14
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Adamant14 »

Don't delete the 'the' in 'The Library of Kratemaqht'.

I played through the first three scenarios so far, and I really enjoyed your work.
I like the story, and all the detailed ideas.
The images for burning villages and burning forest are very good, they look really great in game.
Also the custom Dragon unit looks really great.
Did you draw the sprites by yourself?
It must cost very much time to animate it so perfect.
Great job. :)


Just one thing is a bit annoying.
Spoiler:
Last edited by Adamant14 on November 1st, 2012, 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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cephalo
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by cephalo »

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, the issue with the cages I knew about but forgot to fix before pulling the trigger. I'm going to do another fix run once a get some more feedback.

Yeah, the dragons took me a good four months. They are actually 3D animated, and I wrote an application to turn the 3D output into 'psuedo-pixel art'. I'm not sure there's another way to do it. It's like 400 frames per dragon and I'm not even an artist! :) I do like the result. I think its an acceptable approximation of sprite art.
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Lord-Knightmare
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

cephalo wrote:I'd like to shorten it by cutting the "The", but this is a very large upload. There are nearly 1200 frames for 3 animated dragon types, and it seems wasteful to re-upload the whole thing for such a minor change.
Try this option:
1. Delete your campaign add-on from the add-on server.
2. Separate the image/music files and place them in a separate add-on entitled "LoK Resources"
3. Take your campaign/unit files and make another add-on "Library of Kratemaqht". Don't forget to mention "LoK Resources" as a dependency in your pbl file.
4. Edit the _main.cfg to fix the image path for the units/story/whatsoever.
5. Upload both add-ons.

This is a quick way that allows you to upload scenario fixes. The music/image files stay in the server and you don't need to update them every time you make an edit in your campaign. This is major time save :D . This technique is carried out by many UMC creators (even myself). (Why do you think I use WOL as a dependency for my campaign? :geek: ...)

As for the campaign, I haven't played it yet. It's still downloading...

EDIT: The download took like 2 hrs, slow internet these days...
I played upto scenario A Deadly Confluence and I really enjoy playing this. The custom dragons look awesome.
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cephalo
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by cephalo »

Thanks for the tip. I might do something like that in the future.

Wow, 201 downloads as of this writing. I'm surprised so few comments here. I guess people do alot more playing than commenting.
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Adamant14
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Adamant14 »

Not everyone who plays BfW is here in the forums.
Far from it I guess.
Most of them just play, and don't even know about the forums. :P
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

Okay, I have finished your campaign in normal difficulty.

Some things to stay:
Seeing all the files, I saw there were about 17 scenarios, but when I actually played them, few were cutscenes. So, the length of the campaign was medium. And I love medium length campaigns. Good Job.

I didn't face trouble in any scenario save for that evacuation one. The Ally was worthless, recruiting only Pikemen and Longbowmen (worthless lvl2s when compared to undead). Also I see that the campaign revolves most around the use of Pikemen, so I leveled Spearmen in the ratio 2:6:0 Pikemen: Swordsmen: Javelineer. I didn't want any Javelineers, Pikemen were a better option. The custom mages were no good, so I only leveled one into a Scholar, and used most as fodder or bait :twisted:.

Now, for the story. Good story, but a few questions must be asked.
1. The dragon stone which Cahal extracts from the Dragon Arkinas, was that the Ruby of Fire?
2. At which year does this story take place? I was guessing 500BW or 600BW.

Overall rating: 8.99/10 :D
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cephalo
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by cephalo »

Wow, thanks so much for the playthrough and comments.

You have noticed a strange preference for Pikemen. I would have preferred a Hoplite of some kind instead, but I couldn't find any fully animated ones, so after making my eyes bleed slaving over the dragon animations, I preferred fully animated over exact flavor. I wanted the campaign to have a Hellenistic feel to it in hopes of setting it apart from the later timeline. That's why no cavalry etc. I imagined it a time when people fought mainly with piercing weapons. Also, you noted that it is also a kind of pre-magic time, and the students are meant to be support units, though they could probably be more useful. I need them there mainly for fictional reasons to give the Academy the sense of a large institution.

As to your more specific questions:
1. Yeah, that was my intent :twisted: I thought it would be a pretty good origin story for the ruby of fire. Since you had to ask, it seems that I have preserved the ability to back-track on that if necessary. :)

2. As for the specific place in the timeline. The lich lords arrive on the Green Isle in 200 BW after losing a war. If this war happens to be the one that pits Cahal and his gang vs. Kratemaqht and his gang, the start date for Shifty's dungeon crawl would be approximately 1200 BW. In RoW, Jessene mentions that the old continent is a place of 'every kind of enemy' besides orcs. Before the big dust-up between Kratemaqht and Cahal, I imagine Kratemaqht bringing together some kind of otherworldly coalition against the lich lords.
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

cephalo wrote: As to your more specific questions:
1. Yeah, that was my intent :twisted: I thought it would be a pretty good origin story for the ruby of fire. Since you had to ask, it seems that I have preserved the ability to back-track on that if necessary. :)
Nice, I always thought that the Ruby of Fire was related to dragons somehow...
2. As for the specific place in the timeline. The lich lords arrive on the Green Isle in 200 BW after losing a war. If this war happens to be the one that pits Cahal and his gang vs. Kratemaqht and his gang, The start date for Shifty's dungeon crawl would be approximately 1200 BW. In RoW, Jessene mentions that the old continent is a place of 'every kind of enemy' besides orcs. Before the big dust-up between Kratemaqht and Cahal, I imagine Kratemaqht bringing together some kind of otherworldly coalition against the lich lords.
Interesting, this campaign story brings much information about the Old Continent. I remember many other campaigns about the Old Continent, but none of those were ever completed.
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Ulfsark
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Ulfsark »

I plan on playing through your campaign at some point this week.

It may help you get feedback if you post guidelines as to what you want feedback on, like game balance, Dialogue or the maps.

I look forward to giving this a try when I get a chance :)
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cephalo
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by cephalo »

Ulfsark wrote:I plan on playing through your campaign at some point this week.

It may help you get feedback if you post guidelines as to what you want feedback on, like game balance, Dialogue or the maps.

I look forward to giving this a try when I get a chance :)
I'm a little bit concerned about gameplay. Fortunately, its not a long campaign in that regard. Any bugs need to be pointed out. Also, I have no idea if HARD difficulty is winnable, I usually can't handle hard difficulty on any campaign, so just because I can't do it doesn't mean that the difficulty is where it should be.
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Alarantalara
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Alarantalara »

I downloaded it but didn't play it because I get curious when add-ons become very large.
You could greatly reduce the download size (by at least 20MB) by removing all the .xcf files from the upload. See http://wiki.wesnoth.org/IGNFileFormat for how to keep files from being uploaded. You could also just move them out of add-on directory.
cephalo
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by cephalo »

Alarantalara wrote:I downloaded it but didn't play it because I get curious when add-ons become very large.
You could greatly reduce the download size (by at least 20MB) by removing all the .xcf files from the upload. See http://wiki.wesnoth.org/IGNFileFormat for how to keep files from being uploaded. You could also just move them out of add-on directory.
Ah, I forgot that I left some work files in there. Sorry about that.

EDIT: Ok, I got rid of those extra files, which shaved about 10MB off the download size. There were more than 20MB of extra files, but I guess they compressed well so the overall savings is about 10.
Jim Goodridge
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by Jim Goodridge »

I finished the game tonight on normal difficulty and I really enjoyed it. Thank you for writing it. The story line was good and I hope that you will find the time to write a sequel at some point. I had to restart a couple of scenarios as I had made some tactical errors but your balancing was good.

Well done.

Best Regards
Jim
cephalo
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Re: The Library of Kratemaqht [SP Campaign]

Post by cephalo »

Thanks for playing Jim. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
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