What should/will/would look like tBfW 2.0?

[Cernunnos]

Hi,

Reading a thread about mainline stuff:
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=23530

And seeing the versions growing (even if i'm only here since 1.4, not like those old members from 1.3 and former's )
(And wanting to avoid working for my exams =°...)

Made me thought about asking what will come after 1.9?

What should/will/would look like The Battle For Wesnoth 2.0?
(don't know the appropriate certainty to use...)

Well, i have no idea about that, but maybe you have, maybe even clues ?

@mods, here or off-topic i can't tell, sorry.

[Ken_Oh]

Well, what comes after 1.9 is 1.10.

My serious answer might come later when I have time to think about.

[Aerkusa]

[TheMasterOfBattle]

Hehe, that would be nice, but I don't see that happening for a very long time.

And why are we talking about 2.0 when 1.6 hasn't even come out yet? XD

[Vainglorious]

I like the 16-bit graphical style of Wesnoth. While the technology itself isn't terribly sophisticated (pixels instead of polygons), the important thing is to do the best you can with what you have available, and create something aesthetically pleasing. I'm something of a "graphics whore" myself, and I have a powerful gaming rig, but I enjoy well-done pixel art equally as much as sophisticated, GPU-destroying games like FarCry 2 and BioShock.

There are plenty of games, even recent games, that look ugly despite the benefit of having advanced graphics engines. Plus, "simple" graphics allow for better performance on even low-end computers, an easier time creating user mods, smaller file sizes to download... there are many advantages.

[TheMasterOfBattle]

True. I still play Rogue, in all it's colored ASCII graphics glory.

It is a bit insane how large most computer games are nowadays. :-\

[Ken_Oh]

OK, here's my real answer: http://www.silvertreerpg.org/

[TheMasterOfBattle]

That looks very interesting, I might have to try it.

[Velensk]

I agree that wesnoths sprites have a style to themselves, that for what they do is better than 3D art.

I am kind of hoping that the people working on silver tree get back to it, it had allot of potential. Besides, it would be neat to see my goblin inuse (not that it isn't a horrible placeholder that will almost certainly get replaced if the project gets anywhere).

Speaking of rouge graphics, there is a very interesting game Dwarf Fortress, that uses those graphics. It is a very interesting game, but a huge time sink, and requires all the processing power you can get.

[Dave]

3D graphics are not "better" than 2D graphics. They are simply different. Wesnoth will likely never use 3D graphics, because it's simply not the graphical style we want for the project.

Additionally, 2D artwork has a rather 'timeless' feel to it. What looks good now will look good in five years. With 3D graphics, what looks good now will look painfully out of date in five years. Using 3D graphics would put us on an endless treadmill of always having to be upgrading our engine and art assets to make the game look competitive with other games.

David

[zookeeper]

With 3D graphics, what looks good now will look painfully out of date in five years. Using 3D graphics would put us on an endless treadmill of always having to be upgrading our engine and art assets to make the game look competitive with other games.

Although I'd have agreed with that before, I don't think that really applies to the highest quality 3D graphics we have in very latest and flashiest games anymore. The improvements, I hope, will probably start to lean more towards better and smoother animation, physics and interactive/destructible environments than actual graphical quality. Because...well, the graphical quality itself attainable today is pretty ridiculously good (probably still excluding realistic enough character animation, though).

But of course no one but the big game studios will really be able to do and afford that in a long time, so in terms of Wesnoth or other open source games that'd obviously be true.

[Vainglorious]

3D graphics are not "better" than 2D graphics. They are simply different. Wesnoth will likely never use 3D graphics, because it's simply not the graphical style we want for the project.

Additionally, 2D artwork has a rather 'timeless' feel to it. What looks good now will look good in five years. With 3D graphics, what looks good now will look painfully out of date in five years. Using 3D graphics would put us on an endless treadmill of always having to be upgrading our engine and art assets to make the game look competitive with other games.

David

Agreed 100%.

Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre still look good to modern eyes more than a decade after their release. The same can't be said for any 3D game from the same time period, at least none I've ever seen.

[Aerkusa]

Yeah I like the sprites. The best the graphics could logically be for this game, considering whole mountains fit on one tile, would be something like Civilizations. Pretty, but doesn't really serve a purpose.

I was mostly just making a quick joke in paint.

Could be cool to see a spinoff of 'noth in 3D, since 3D engines are getting easier and easier to use. (look at the mod community for FPS games, the engine does most of the work, and makes development incredibly easy for the end user).

[Blarumyrran]

Could be cool to see a spinoff of 'noth in 3D, since 3D engines are getting easier and easier to use. (look at the mod community for FPS games, the engine does most of the work, and makes development incredibly easy for the end user).

There was a game called GalaxyMage once, but its website was shut down a long time (a year?) ago. But it was a lot more rpg-ish than wesnoth, too. I dont remember how similar it was to wesnoth otherwise, other than using wesnoth sprites and being tbs and featuring some similar units.

Other than that, Wesnoth 2.0 should have a sentient mushroom faction. To simplify the already complicated balancing, all factions other than another mushroom faction should instantly lose when playing against them.

[Unnheulu]

https://www.ohloh.net/p/galaxymageredux

actually, the manager was called mattiroto or something, and used to be on the wesnoth board