New Mainline Campaign by Developer team?

[Eleazar]

This guy has a good idea. Most of our finished campigns are much simpler than they need to be. But to really create a good campaign is more work than one or a few people can reasonably put in.

I second the motion that developers and contributors should get together to create a new grand campaign. A campaign with a strong story, but that also shows off what Wesnoth can do. To provide direction, i propose that individual who have proven themselves be given final say over various aspects of the game. I'd nominate:

• Quartex for lead story writer
  Jetryl for custom art lead
  Zookeeper for fancy WML
  One or all of our MP devs for balancing (since they work so well as a Triumverate)
  and others?...

I could serve on the writing and art teams.

I would propose that this campaign be given the license to rewrite parts of Wesnoth History, especially such as exist in non-well maintained campaigns in the interest of advancing it's plot. The player should be able to face nearly all of the mainline units at some point in the campaign.

[zookeeper]

As I said in the other thread, good idea. I'd really like to get something like this rolling, preferably rather soon.

Now, personally I don't think we should necessarily aim for a grand epic (such as HttT or TRoW). The story can of course revolve around some key moments of Wesnoth's history, but it doesn't need to be 20+ scenarios long, for example.

The player should be able to face nearly all of the mainline units at some point in the campaign.

This, in particular, I very much disagree with. A good and impressive campaign doesn't need to be massive. And it doesn't make much sense IMHO for the campaign to take place in all corners of Wesnoth, which would pretty much be the only way the player could face all the major races.

The biggest problem will probably be agreeing on the story - all key contributors need to agree on the story, plot and general setting to keep people interested, and I have a feeling many of us would want to do rather different things. Maybe.

[Neoriceisgood]

This idea lacks neorice.

[Eleazar]

The biggest problem will probably be agreeing on the story - all key contributors need to agree on the story, plot and general setting to keep people interested, and I have a feeling many of us would want to do rather different things. Maybe.

That's exactly why i proposed we choose someone as a "story lead." You can't really write a good story by commitee, especially a large commitee where everyone has an equal vote. That doesn't mean other people can't contribute to the story, but for efficiency and coherency someone needs to have the final say. I think Quartex (if he wants to do it) is someone who's story writing skills we could all respect.

[Maeglin Dubh]

I've got a fever. And the only prescription, is more neorice.

I can throw in some creative writing if needed.

[Neoriceisgood]

No really, I'd really like to help on this idea;

(READ: use this "campaign" as another excuse to increase the neorice-made-unit count in wesnoth significantly, because Jetryl is gaining on me quickly with his whole "Lol redoing everything! ^^" tactics (grrr))

[Jetrel]

The biggest problem will probably be agreeing on the story - all key contributors need to agree on the story, plot and general setting to keep people interested, and I have a feeling many of us would want to do rather different things. Maybe.

That's exactly why i proposed we choose someone as a "story lead." You can't really write a good story by commitee, especially a large commitee where everyone has an equal vote. That doesn't mean other people can't contribute to the story, but for efficiency and coherency someone needs to have the final say.

Yes.

I think Quartex (if he wants to do it) is someone who's story writing skills we could all respect.

Civility would dictate that I keep feelings like this to myself, but this could do a lot more damage if left unsaid. To be frank - Quartex has made one of our best campaigns, one of the most enjoyable to play, but I don't have much faith in his ability to come up with good ideas for fantasy settings. He is great at making interesting scenarios, and putting wesnoth's features to good use, he's a great guy, but his general plot/setting work is, IMO, very stilted and cliché.

I'd love to have him as a consultant for scenario design and balance, but I absolutely refuse to work under him as a project leader; not because he's a bad guy - he's a great guy, and fun to be around and work with. But I don't think he has the necessary vision for it to be worth spending my time on.

[jg]

I would enlist myself as a possible helper as well (if you need me). I have some experience with story writing, and can also do some WML... Though, I think Zookeeper will probably not need any help with the WML...

At least I can give feedback and be a playtester...

jg

[JW]

I was going to send campaign ideas to zookeeper, but I'll post them on the forums here instead, perhaps to be picked up by willing coders (including zookeeper) to code for this effort.

[Neoriceisgood]

That's exactly why i proposed we choose someone as a "story lead." You can't really write a good story by commitee, especially a large commitee where everyone has an equal vote. That doesn't mean other people can't contribute to the story, but for efficiency and coherency someone needs to have the final say.

Yes.

I think Quartex (if he wants to do it) is someone who's story writing skills we could all respect.

Civility would dictate that I keep feelings like this to myself, but this could do a lot more damage if left unsaid. To be frank - Quartex has made one of our best campaigns, one of the most enjoyable to play, but I don't have much faith in his ability to come up with good ideas for fantasy settings. He is great at making interesting scenarios, and putting wesnoth's features to good use, he's a great guy, but his general plot/setting work is, IMO, very stilted and cliché.

I'd love to have him as a consultant for scenario design and balance, but I absolutely refuse to work under him as a project leader; not because he's a bad guy - he's a great guy, and fun to be around and work with. But I don't think he has the necessary vision for it to be worth spending my time on.

Any subtle hints at who you wouldn't mind working under?

[torangan]

This, in particular, I very much disagree with. A good and impressive campaign doesn't need to be massive. And it doesn't make much sense IMHO for the campaign to take place in all corners of Wesnoth, which would pretty much be the only way the player could face all the major races.

The biggest problem will probably be agreeing on the story - all key contributors need to agree on the story, plot and general setting to keep people interested, and I have a feeling many of us would want to do rather different things. Maybe.

I think we could solve both problems easily. Just design the first scenarios in a way which allows massive branching. I'm not proposing to even try to create all branches at once, make it such that they can be added later. This will allow for different story lines as well as facing a huge number of units depending on which branch you take. They don't need to merge again, just have a plot in the first branch which hints to other stuff happening far away. Later on other branches can take the player to another part of the world playing a different piece of the whole story.

[Ranger M]

I think we could solve both problems easily. Just design the first scenarios in a way which allows massive branching. I'm not proposing to even try to create all branches at once, make it such that they can be added later. This will allow for different story lines as well as facing a huge number of units depending on which branch you take. They don't need to merge again, just have a plot in the first branch which hints to other stuff happening far away. Later on other branches can take the player to another part of the world playing a different piece of the whole story.

Yes, I can't beleive that I hadn't thought of this but having the campaign also be an example of good branching would be great, and if there is one thing that I love in campaigns it is choice.

If only we could have multiple endings with different outcomes, but that would mess with the history too much (Turin might have a fit... or two), so as it is you would simply be limited to different methods of attaing the same goal (the history's bullet points tend to give enough wiggle room, "and he beat the orcs back to their home", gives you alot of freedom, that isn't actually one of them, but it is very similar to most of them, except the more descriptive ones).

EDIT: oh, and to add to this, if the campaign hero is sufficiently faceless in the history (eg, "one of the wesnothian generals" instead of "general Dwane of Wesnoth") then you could have choice and then have other guys fufill the other choices, so that the history can still say "and the wesnothian army in the south beat the drakes, while the others surpressed the uprising in the north", and simply not specifiy exactly who did what.

[zookeeper]

If only we could have multiple endings with different outcomes, but that would mess with the history too much (Turin might have a fit... or two), so as it is you would simply be limited to different methods of attaing the same goal (the history's bullet points tend to give enough wiggle room, "and he beat the orcs back to their home", gives you alot of freedom, that isn't actually one of them, but it is very similar to most of them, except the more descriptive ones).

I don't see a problem. Often in RPG's, you can take one of multiple paths (like the choice between good and evil being the most common), but the canon can still be dictated. For example, we can give the hero the choice between being good and saving the kingdom and being evil and destroying it, and it's no problem since we can just state in the official history that the "good path" is the canonical one.

For example in KotOR I, the player can choose between a good and evil ending. In KotOR II, the main character from I isn't around anymore, and the canon dictates that he was a good guy. No problem. I don't see why there would be more of a problem with Wesnoth campaigns.

[JW]

I don't see a problem. Often in RPG's, you can take one of multiple paths (like the choice between good and evil being the most common), but the canon can still be dictated. For example, we can give the hero the choice between being good and saving the kingdom and being evil and destroying it, and it's no problem since we can just state in the official history that the "good path" is the canonical one.

For example in KotOR I, the player can choose between a good and evil ending. In KotOR II, the main character from I isn't around anymore, and the canon dictates that he was a good guy. No problem. I don't see why there would be more of a problem with Wesnoth campaigns.

Exactly what I was thinking.


Minus the kotor stuff.

[Ranger M]

I don't see a problem. Often in RPG's, you can take one of multiple paths (like the choice between good and evil being the most common), but the canon can still be dictated. For example, we can give the hero the choice between being good and saving the kingdom and being evil and destroying it, and it's no problem since we can just state in the official history that the "good path" is the canonical one.

For example in KotOR I, the player can choose between a good and evil ending. In KotOR II, the main character from I isn't around anymore, and the canon dictates that he was a good guy. No problem. I don't see why there would be more of a problem with Wesnoth campaigns.

Actually KotOR II lets you choose weather or not the last hero was good/evil and male/female through some dialogue choices, which leads to a few ever so slight differences in the gameplay and some dialogue/characters, although not the actual story. Something which we can't do in the history (please select weather or not galhered destroyed wesnoth or saved it before veiwing this page), however we can simpy do what you suggested, or make it so that the historical outcome is the same, no matter what path you choose, you simply get a different perspecive on it (as the good guy or the bad guy, although this needs the nameless heros I talked about earlier)