More exposure for portraits (NOT on the sidebar)

[solsword]

In summary: although I now agree that putting portrait art into the sidebar in place of sprites is a bad idea, I really like the idea of *somehow* getting the portrait art more exposure. It's great stuff, but is currently presented poorly in the help text (it's tacked on as an afterthought in the upper-right of the pages, often in a smaller format and multiple versions of the same character (usually male and female) are presented together). The portrait art really shines when seen in message dialogs, but I'd venture to say that the majority of unit types have no dialogue in mainline campaigns.

What I'm looking for in this thread are ideas about how to give more attention to the unit portraits, hopefully without making too much work for coders. I've got two ideas, but neither is really great, so I'm really hoping that someone else comes along with something better to propose.

My first idea is simple, in that it requires little coding, but it's a bit of a gimmick, and might quickly become annoying. I'll let others be the judge.

Basically, my first idea is to have every unit say something when they're recruited (and/or when they get recalled or level up). While this admittedly has the potential to be quite annoying, a menu option to turn it off (or only have it occur for new unit types) might mitigate this. And the merits of this idea are mainly that it would be easy to implement and gives broad exposure to the portraits (although perhaps enemy portraits such as orcs or undead wouldn't get as much exposure).


My second idea is complicated to code, but in my opinion has other advantages that *might* be worth it. Again, I'll let others judge it, but I'll hedge by admitting that I'm not quite sure myself whether this would really be a good idea.

My second idea is to add a new type of information window, accessible similar to the unit help window, that incorporates both unit-specific information (like current/max hitpoints, experience, gender, and name) and a prominent place for the unit portrait. This window would not have the help browser menu attached. Downsides include the fact that this would take a lot of coding, and that it's entirely redundant with existing sources of information. It also might not do *that* much to increase portrait exposure, although displaying it as a click-through window on recruitment and level-up might help this.

On the other hand, this idea offers (in my opinion) the potential benefit of increased player immersion, as players might develop more attachment to their individual units. This factor would be increased if we could track things like unit kills or overall accuracy in this window (although to my knowledge this would require even more coding), giving the player more unit-specific details to think about.

So, thoughts on these ideas? Other ideas to increase portrait visibility?

[beetlenaut]

I thought it would be a good idea to have the help screen portraits link to the high-resolution versions. They would be displayed on their own page, and any click would bring you back to the stats page. I put in a feature request for it already.

[lotsofphil]

The portraits are great; I don't think anyone will disagree there. I think that anything that displays them in game would get old pretty fast. There aren't that many portraits so you'd see them all pretty fast.

Basically, my first idea is to have every unit say something when they're recruited (and/or when they get recalled or level up). While this admittedly has the potential to be quite annoying, a menu option to turn it off (or only have it occur for new unit types) might mitigate this. And the merits of this idea are mainly that it would be easy to implement and gives broad exposure to the portraits (although perhaps enemy portraits such as orcs or undead wouldn't get as much exposure).

This would get annoying very quickly. It would have to be off by default. So it wouldn't expose many people to the portraits.

My second idea is to add a new type of information window, accessible similar to the unit help window, that incorporates both unit-specific information (like current/max hitpoints, experience, gender, and name) and a prominent place for the unit portrait. This window would not have the help browser menu attached. Downsides include the fact that this would take a lot of coding, and that it's entirely redundant with existing sources of information. It also might not do *that* much to increase portrait exposure, although displaying it as a click-through window on recruitment and level-up might help this.

This one is better but why not just improve the help menus? I like what beetlenaut suggests. If you are looking for other ideas, how about a Wesnoth portrait screensaver or an option to view the portrait gallery on the main screen (where campaign, multiplayer, etc currently are).

[Thrawn]

The best ways to get them more exposure are:

1. Have them as loading screens instead just the black background w/ the symbol on it

2. Making a new "Gallery" button for the main menu, that could have the portrait, story, and fan art.

3. Having shirts and stuff w/ the art on it, like when fmunoz had his cafepress (?) shop thingie.

4. Wallpapers/backgrounds/Screensavers

Problems & Comments

1. Not sure how much coding it would take, nor how it would affect time to load.

2. Prolly too much work for too little gain, especially when factoring in maintaining a fan art gallery.

3. Would take some outside work, but would imo be the best way to get them exposure while using them to advertise. Perhaps w/ it hitting the i-phone, such a venture would be more profitable than before?

4. Easy to do, but would take someone some time to make them look nice.

[thespaceinvader]

I'd fully support backporting the new load screens from the iPhone version, which have some pretty border work, a portrait, and one of the story screens (of which we might need a few more, but all in good time). We might need a little code to make it work, but I know we already have a portrait-randomisation algorithm for the website front page, so... that might work. Also, MERCH! We needs ourselves some merch.

[Aethaeryn]

I'd fully support backporting the new load screens from the iPhone version, which have some pretty border work, a portrait, and one of the story screens (of which we might need a few more, but all in good time).

This.

[solsword]

...I know we already have a portrait-randomisation algorithm for the website front page, so...

<goes and refreshes www.wesnoth.org several times> That's awesome!

It seems like there's something of a consensus here: take the portraits and just put them somewhere where they'll get seen. People like loading screens, and apparently people playing on their IPhones already have this feature.

Unless people have anything more to say regarding how exactly we should put portraits on the loading screens, I say that this thread has served its purpose and that we (by which I mean everybody here *except* me, of course) should go out and implement this idea. (Okay seriously this might be where the idea dies: we seem to agree that its a good one, but someone has to adopt it in order for it to become a reality, and with the number of Wesnoth-related projects I'm working on right now, not to mention the start of the quarter coming up... that someone isn't going to be me).

But whether someone actually adopts this idea, submits a patch, and makes it a reality or whether it simply gets noted as "It would have been kinda nice, but no-one got around to it," we have had a productive discussion on the ideas thread. Yay!

[Zakalwe]

How about show the unit portrait when a unit promotes? You could also put in information like the kills that the unit has made and other fun stats etc. etc.

[Viliam]

I think it would be nice if a click on the unit info in sidebar would open a window with unit information. The help already contains "unit type information", but this would be "unit information" -- similar, but different. For example it would not only display maximum hit points, but also current hit points. If the unit is poisoned, slowed, etc, it would describe the effect. Simply, it would contain all information from the sidebar (including information from tooltips on various parts of the sidebar), some information from unit type description, and of course a portrait.

Perhaps the "unit type information" and "unit information" window could be somehow connected. The "unit" window could contain a link to "unit type". And a "unit type" window could contain a list of units (my, friendly, enemy) of this type currently visible on the map. But this is perhaps too much work.

[Aethaeryn]

I think it would be nice if a click on the unit info in sidebar would open a window with unit information. The help already contains "unit type information", but this would be "unit information" -- similar, but different. For example it would not only display maximum hit points, but also current hit points. If the unit is poisoned, slowed, etc, it would describe the effect. Simply, it would contain all information from the sidebar (including information from tooltips on various parts of the sidebar), some information from unit type description, and of course a portrait.

Perhaps the "unit type information" and "unit information" window could be somehow connected. The "unit" window could contain a link to "unit type". And a "unit type" window could contain a list of units (my, friendly, enemy) of this type currently visible on the map. But this is perhaps too much work.

And you could finally see zombie stats...

[Yoyobuae]

And you could finally see zombie stats...

Well you can, just hover mouse to HPs on the sidebar to show the resistances (also works after upgrading in coloseum and such). To see defense/movecost you can select the zombie and move the cursor to different terrains and read them at the upper right.

I thinks that's all there is to know.

[Aethaeryn]

To see defense/movecost you can select the zombie and move the cursor to different terrains and read them at the upper right.

And this is the extremely unfriendly part, having to mouse over different terrains on the map to see the defenses. There's no list, etc., for long term planning. Of course, resistances differing from the mainline help file while within a regular mainline game is also counter-intuitive. I know to check resistances by hovering over HP in an RPG, but who would think in a standard 1v1 on Hamlets?

[Zachron]

An interesting thought, with no idea as to how it may be possible:
Maybe there could be a type of message function in multiplayer, where you give dialogue to a unit at the begining of a certain player's turn. You'd only be able to give dialogue to your own units this way, and there should be some limit to how many of these pre-set dialogue you have at one time. I can give a pseudocode to how it would work.

START
choose unit
choose target player
input dialogue
-If- Target player is human
output dialogue from unit at the start of target player's turn
-Else-
disregard input
-End Decision-
STOP

(The If/Else bit is because AI's don't know how to use the "Any" key yet.)

Such a feature would allow you to give messages which are harder to disregard (Like having your injured unit call for help, or using you leader to taunt an opponent), and would net more exposure for the unit art.

[Yoyobuae]

Hey that's a good idea.

Also would be nice to be able to choose to have one of your units talk right before combat (or after it or only after kill).

*Drake Burner attacks*
Drake Burner> "Burn, baby, burn!!!"

Nice.

Implementation probably may not be easy, though. How/when to transmit the information about the dialogue to the other player? Or perhaps some WML experimentation is in order first?

[Zachron]

Unless there are some pre-existing labels that can be accessed by WML, I don't think this could be done without hardcoding it... I could be wrong, I've seen some interesting things come from WML before.