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BTIsaac
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by BTIsaac »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: January 8th, 2020, 1:49 pm Um what. A "sapling" is just a young tree, not some mechanism of reproduction. Maybe you meant to say "cuttings"? (Which isn't exclusive to trees, mind you.)
Yes, that is what I meant. I did try to correct myself, but I wasn't sure what was the correct term.
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by lhybrideur »

I personally see two ways of ending the debate(but it may not because people).
If female drakes are actually barely sentient being, we can go with "breeder", but it has to be stated in the encyclopedia that they are barely sentient.
If they are normal drake and the drake society is simply highly misogynistic, it also has to be stated in the encyclopedia, and it could be interesting to add the female in the campaign (for example LVL0 female drake defending baby drakes or female drake speaking at least once in the campaign). We could then imagine having drake campaigns with more presence of the female drakes. As was stated before, humans in LotR and GoT are highly misogynistic, but nevertheless there are strong women in those stories.
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by BTIsaac »

lhybrideur wrote: January 8th, 2020, 4:52 pm If female drakes are actually barely sentient being, we can go with "breeder", but it has to be stated in the encyclopedia that they are barely sentient.
That is, i believe the direction the writer intended to go. If this is the direction taken though, it would probably be more appropriate to consider that breeders arent so much female drakes but more of an offshoot of what is essentially an all male species. Asari in Mass Effect are an all female race and the way it's explained is, they reproduce by looking deeply onto someone's eyes or something. They don't even need males at all. This is from a tripple-A game published by EA - the only thing more mainstream than this is disney star wars. If this isn't considered "alien to the point of unrelatability" i don't see how the above idea would be.
As was stated before, humans in LotR and GoT are highly misogynistic, but nevertheless there are strong women in those stories.
I'm sorry but this is simply not true. The most misogynistic thing you can attribute to humans, or anyone in LotR is one old man in a position of power, being opposed to his niece putting herself into a position where there's a 90% chance of her getting brutally murdered. If that's all it takes to be a misogynist in this day and age, i don't know why anyone would even bother.
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by Whiskeyjack »

BTIsaac wrote: January 8th, 2020, 5:23 pm
As was stated before, humans in LotR and GoT are highly misogynistic, but nevertheless there are strong women in those stories.
I'm sorry but this is simply not true. The most misogynistic thing you can attribute to humans, or anyone in LotR is one old man in a position of power, being opposed to his niece putting herself into a position where there's a 90% chance of her getting brutally murdered. If that's all it takes to be a misogynist in this day and age, i don't know why anyone would even bother.
Well, you probably can't fault Tolkien for being explicitly misogynistic, but he was a child of his time, wrote of very gender-stereotypical cultures and, additionally, female characters certainly weren't his... strong suit.

You have like 3 female elves as actually strong players (Melian, Luthien, Galadriel - now that I think of it, the first of those is not even an elf, but rather a Maia, and the second is descended from her, go figure...) compared to hundreds of great male characters. And Eowyn, who you are referring to, is probably the only female besides Luthien with an actual story of her own - which ends with her giving up her dreams of the sword and settling down as another faithful housewife. I love Tolkien and his writing with all my heart, but you can't deny that there were troubles in regards to female characters in his works...

Edit: didn't read well, this wasn't even about Tolkien but just his world... Which, again, I'd argue is not explicitly misogynistic, but certainly implicitly so.

Edit2: alright, I see reason, misogyny is too hard a term either way, that one was on my lazy use of language. Passive/cultural sexism would probably be a more adequate point of discussion for Tolkien.
EDIT: but this thread is getting derailed here. The off-topic subforum exists for a reason.
You realize this NOW? :lol:

I'll be fine with mods deleting this post and will refrain from further posting anything not WoV related here - couldn't resist the temptation, sorry.
Last edited by Whiskeyjack on January 8th, 2020, 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by Iris »

Unfamiliarity and lack of representation does not equal misogyny.
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BTIsaac
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by BTIsaac »

Whiskeyjack wrote: January 8th, 2020, 5:37 pm Well, you probably can't fault Tolkien for being explicitly misogynistic, but he was a child of his time, wrote of very gender-stereotypical cultures and, additionally, female characters certainly weren't his... strong suit.
You mean he wrote of cultures that acknowledged traditional gender roles, and grew up in one such culture.
You have like 3 female elves as actually strong players (Melian, Luthien, Galadriel - now that I think of it, the first of those is not even an elf, but rather a Maia, and the second is descended from her, go figure...) compared to hundreds of great male characters.
You mean he didn't fill some imaginary arbitrary quota.
And Eowyn, who you are referring to, is probably the only female besides Luthien with an actual story of her own - which ends with her giving up her dreams of the sword and settling down as another faithful housewife. I love Tolkien and his writing with all my heart, but you can't deny that there were troubles in regards to female characters in his works...
That is a major misrepresentation of her character. Tolkien's anti-war stance as well as that of his characters is a major theme throughout his works. If you read LotR and come away with the conclusion that Eowyn dreamt of being a soldier and gave up on this dream to become a housewife, then you don't understand jack about Tolkien.

EDIT: but this thread is getting derailed here. The off-topic subforum exists for a reason.
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

To get things back on track:

I feel it would be relevant and useful to make a statement regarding my approach to how I went about completing WoV (I'm not the original author).

1. I decided to solve the problem of a lack of drake campaign in mainline.
2. Considered the available options viewtopic.php?f=2&t=48497
3. Decided where to commit my time and effort.
4. Applied my usual approach of attempting to stay true to the spirit of the work. (It does make things simpler.)
5. Responded to the feedback given.
6. Realized throughout it wasn't likey to be considered a top tier campaign, but didn't want perfect to be the enemy of good.

As far as WoV itself:
1. As I see it, the bit about drake females isn't central to depicting the drakes in general. How drakes reproduce could be like GoT's dragons. (no gender, under right circumstances, producing eggs), In any case, no need for it to be handled by the campaign, and it could be removed.
2. I see the essence of depicting the drakes as the experiences of a band of flying carnivores. So they are naturally concerned about having hunting grounds and dominance over them. They would have an emphasis on honor in order to work together and avoid injury from each other and from prey.
Also, this perspective:
loonycyborg wrote: January 7th, 2020, 3:22 pm Kzin seems more to be made as dedicated antagonist species to drive the conflict. While Drake seem to be more nuanced to me. Warlike yet wise.
is something I agree with for handling drakes.
3. I do feel there is room for improvement in the gameplay. In particular, I have been thinking about adding more objective variety, and feel it could be done with S07, S08, & possibly also S10.
4. There is room for improvement in the dialog.

In any case, feedback on things is still welcome. When the situation has cleared up, I'll have a better idea of how to proceed.
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BTIsaac
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by BTIsaac »

SigurdFireDragon wrote: January 8th, 2020, 10:19 pm
loonycyborg wrote: January 7th, 2020, 3:22 pm Kzin seems more to be made as dedicated antagonist species to drive the conflict. While Drake seem to be more nuanced to me. Warlike yet wise.
is something I agree with for handling drakes.
This is an odd thing though. How do immutable biological traits play into being an dedicated antagonist species? Because if that's the rationale behind them having non sentient females, that makes it sound like their writer just created an excuse to make an entire race inherently sexist, that they have no control over. That feels much worse to me than just trying to make the player relate with a race that is fundamentally different in a number of aspects.

Regarding the other points:
1. As I see it, the bit about drake females isn't central to depicting the drakes in general. How drakes reproduce could be like GoT's dragons. (no gender, under right circumstances, producing eggs), In any case, no need for it to be handled by the campaign, and it could be removed.
That may be so, but it's a question that needs to be answered at one point. Though the GoT direction sounds okay to me. But only is the original concept is absolutely out of the question.
4. There is room for improvement in the dialog.
Esr, who did the worldbuilding, mentioned working on THoT, and that campaign had some of the bast writing in the game. A real shame he didn't write the whole prose for WoV. I don't think that's a possibility now.
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by gnombat »

SigurdFireDragon wrote: January 8th, 2020, 10:19 pm 4. Applied my usual approach of attempting to stay true to the spirit of the work. (It does make things simpler.)
I'm not sure if it actually makes things simpler (it doesn't actually appear to have made things simpler in this case), but I do definitely agree that it is best to try to stay true to the spirit of the original work.
SigurdFireDragon wrote: January 8th, 2020, 10:19 pm 1. As I see it, the bit about drake females isn't central to depicting the drakes in general. How drakes reproduce could be like GoT's dragons. (no gender, under right circumstances, producing eggs), In any case, no need for it to be handled by the campaign, and it could be removed.
Would that really be staying true to the spirit of the work, though? The original author is opposed to that change.

Sure, it's not really a central part of the campaign, and you can argue that just changing that one part would not have much of an effect on the campaign overall, but is that even the only thing that would need to change? It seems like there are a lot more changes being demanded than just that. I suspect that if the campaign were to receive all the changes necessary to satisfy its critics (if that is even possible), the result would likely be unrecognizable.

I don't think this problem is unique to Wings of Victory - personally I've noticed that many mainline campaigns have a feeling of "too many cooks spoil the broth" - it's as if they've been modified so many times by so many different people that they've lost something of the original campaign as the author intended it. All of the changes that have been made have removed some of the finer details of the original work - or sometimes have even introduced outright contradictions that don't make sense - so that the result is rather muddy and incoherent. Campaigns on the add-on server seem less likely to have this problem: they're usually being maintained either by the original author or by someone who tries to ensure that any changes made are at least consistent with the original version.

Edit: fixed a couple of typos.
Last edited by gnombat on January 9th, 2020, 4:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.6 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

Version 1.0.6 is up

Changes:
Remove all depictions of drake females

There. See how easy that was.
https://github.com/sigurdfdragon/Wings_ ... 088144e4df


gnombat wrote: January 9th, 2020, 4:07 pm Sure, it's not really a central part of the campaign, and you can argue that just changing that one part would not have much of an effect on the campaign overall, but is that even the only thing that would need to change? It seems like there are a lot more changes being demanded than just that. I suspect that if the campaign were to receive all the changes necessary to satisfy its critics (if that is even possible), the result would likely be unrecognizable.
Even though I think it's possible to make changes and still keep most of the spirit, I suspect that it is not possible to satisfy its critics.
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.6 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by WackoJacko »

After reading all the drama over the last few days I decided to download WoV today and see what all the fuss was about. I've just finished it and see that a new version has been released. Isn't that typical :lol:
I'm sure we don't need another opinion so I'll leave some feedback specific to gameplay. (You suggest that the dialogue needs work in point 4, however I can't see why. The spelling and grammar makes sense, the conversations seem realistic, nothing is disjointed/buggy, so I'm assuming by dialogue you mean story).
Personally, i think the story (and accompanying gameplay) makes sense (see spoiler)
Spoiler:
however some questions still remained unanswered at the end of the story, so maybe the epilogue could be removed and a second chapter/campaign created? Or maybe add more scenarios.
-After his "induction" into the Spiral Path, the hero never tries to fulfil it's purpose
Spoiler:
The hero seems to luck his way into a situation where the Straight Path can be followed indefinitely
Spoiler:
-What about the mysterious crown? The Human Leader threatens vengeance but then it never arrives.

Only real "bug" I can see is that great care is taken to shroud the lich in mystery (no name, no portrait, fog) and then the objectives appear and it tells you their name ;)

EDIT:
I played on Aspirant (challenging) difficulty and found the gold situation tough. Would have been worse if not for the decent early finish bonuses, however I still started the end scenario with about half the gold of the enemy
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.5 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by TheRangerLOL »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: January 8th, 2020, 1:49 pm
There are also other plants that can "reproduce" asexually via "runners" – strawberries for example.
The Banyan tree is an excellent example of a tree that is capable of reproducing asexually, although i don't think that that's the only way it reproduces.

Also, cuttings don't only apply to trees. Gardeners use them for many different types of flowers, particularly roses, but i've also done it with cacti as well.
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.6 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by AlexanderRM »

I had some ideas I've been discussing on the Discord and figured I should post them to the forums in a somewhat more formal way:

1. IMO the Drakes having a different reproductive cycle is a really good idea, the alternate reproductive biologies such as Goblins and Orcs being the same species are some of the most interesting parts of Wesnoth fluff.
I see multiple people have already mentioned this, but what if Drakes work like Anglerfish, with small nonsentient males who might even fuse permanently into the females' body? That makes a lot more sense ecologically than having nonsentient females (note that Larry Niven's Kzin were the result of genetic engineering by their own ancestors, who wanted their sons to be brave warriors and their wives to be a little less naggy and then each successive generation modified things further, not evolution), since females need to have enough size and energy to produce eggs or offspring and with that much investment you want some basic ability to take care of yourself, requiring more energy etc, but males are much easier to scale down to just sperm production and mobility.
To make this fit with existing appearances: Female drakes are referred to as males when speaking languages like Wesnothian and Elven because the first humans to encounter them assumed their warriors were males, while Drakes at least initially had no idea how human reproductive biology worked but noticed human warriors were referred to as "males", and since all Drake females are warriors they figured the humans were identifying them correctly. This can even fit with other Drake UMCs featuring all-male drakes, as we can assume they're being retold in Wesnothian.
Since drakes are social and intelligent creatures, if they had small nonsentient males then instead of releasing them to fly around in search of a female they could just carry males to each other in person. This could have all sorts of social implications: for example trading males with another drake could be an important and unique social bond, but one which an older drake female would share with multiple other drakes so it wouldn't be the same as pair marriage; probably good to come up with an untranslatable Drake word for this.

2. Regarding Drake morality- they definitely should have some kind of blue and orange morality or at least grey morality since currently we have 3 "hero" species and 2 "villain" species, so a lot of campaign scenarios involve only one of 6 matchups. The one part of Drake lore that people actually agree on is that they're highly honorable. What if the reason Drakes no longer eat humans is because at least some of them signed a treaty with Wesnoth agreeing that they and their descendants wouldn't eat humans?
Since Drakes always keep their agreements and are intelligent, they should be extremely careful about any long-term treaties they agree to*, so this wouldn't be like one of those fae stories where the hero tricks them into it in exchange for some minor advantage, but something like humans agreeing not to attack drakes or invade their lands in exchange for drakes not agreeing to hunt humans or invade their lands would probably be reasonable. If we want to make drakes fairly alien, I'd include that Drakes insisted on still being allowed to eat humans in cases where they're allowed to kill humans- so probably exceptions for humans who attack drakes, trespass on their lands, and maybe any human who practices necromancy as well.

*I'd assume Drake legends should include an enormous number of the kind of stories where a Greek god swears on the river styx to do someone a favor and then finds out what the favor are, but involving vastly more advanced and complicated tricks.
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.6 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

AlexanderRM wrote: January 20th, 2020, 12:58 am currently we have 3 "hero" species and 2 "villain" species
Which species are you thinking of here? There are a lot more than 5 species in Wesnoth, so I'm not really sure what you're thinking here.
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Re: Wings of Victory 1.0.6 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14/1.15)

Post by name »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: January 20th, 2020, 1:14 am
AlexanderRM wrote: January 20th, 2020, 12:58 am currently we have 3 "hero" species and 2 "villain" species
Which species are you thinking of here? There are a lot more than 5 species in Wesnoth, so I'm not really sure what you're thinking here.
Most likely he meant factions, rather than species. Loyalists, Rebels and Knalgans as the usually protagonist factions and Northerners and Undead as the antagonists.

It is a good point. In mainline campaigns, Northerners and Undead are too heavily relied on as opponents, from a purely gameplay perspective. So it is highly desirable that Drakes can be reasonably well cast as opponents in scenarios or whole campaigns, to break up the monotony and reward players developing well balanced armies (not just heavies, mages and cavalry in a campaign primarily set against the undead, for example).

This is a strength of Wings of Victory. It sets up for campaigns later in the timeline to have bands of Drakes following the Straight Path as terrifying opponents or followers of the Spiral Path as wildcards or even the powerful and noble allies seen in Northern Rebirth.
Last edited by name on January 20th, 2020, 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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