Project: Morningtide

[Noitakuningas]

Hello everyone!

I'm a vivid Wesnoth fan, and the stories you can tell with it. Inspired by Under the Burning Suns and other campaigns, I've long wanted to try my hand at weaving a tale of my own for others to enjoy. Sadly, my skills at coding and mapping are weak at best, nonexistent at worst. And so I ask all of you forumgoers; if amongst you are individuals who would like to partake in creating a character-based, heavily RPG-influenced campaign. I'm a rather good writer, having written many novellas and settings for role-playing games before, and I have an outline and general story for a new campaign in mind. I'll present to you the outline, and if there are any who would be interested in working with me, please reply here or contact me via a private message! I'd not like to share too many details in a public thread, because if this project one day is finished, it'd be a waste if you fellows already knew the story!

The Beginning

Our story begins with Sirias Nadri, a young half-elf. The [censored] son of an elven mercenary and a nobleman's wife, he became a wandering sell-sword after many events, and now strides the countryside, offering his skills at arms in exchange for money and shelter. A war between humans and elves is breaking out due to animosity and greed, forcing Sirias, or Morningtide as he is known to many, to pick a side in the fight; whether to heed the call of the forest and his elven ancestry, or to fight side-by-side the humans he has mingled with his entire life. Between all this, dreams and nightmares from strange events haunt him, draining his will and will to live. Who is the dark lady in his visions, always calling out to him, and why does he dream of an elven knight climbing an endless staircase in a crumbling tower? What about the visions of battles and wars long since forgotten plague his sleep? All these questions will have their answers!

The battle between elves and men would only be the beginning, and the main focus would be on unraveling Morningtide's past and who he really is.

Main Characters

These are simply sketches and ideas of what kind of characters are involved in the story. Note again that the emphasis is on named characters rather than hired rank-and-file.

Sirias Nadri, a swift, agile warrior.
Shardathian Moore, a loyal, old knight with a dark secret.
Edruin Char, a once-powerful arcane adept, stripped of his powers by his Elven kin because he was too powerful and unstable.
Bearclaw, a stout, large woodsman who has sworn allegiance to elves, receiving a gift of lycantrophy.
Sinesia Nourha, a female knight, scorned by her peers but possessing a surprising skill in combat.


The Setting

An ambiguous setting would be perfect: a continent of Wesnoth previously unexplored, or perhaps this story doesn't take place in the world of Wesnoth at all? This is up to debate.

The Units and Characters

As said, the emphasis should be on character development and RPG elements. Take a little bit from UtBS, loan something from Secret of Mana 2 (or Seiken Densetsu 3), and add in some Final Fantasy 3. What I have in mind is a couple of main characters, each with their own class tree. For example, Character X has a base class, and after gaining enough experience, he can evolve to either class A, B or C. Depending on his choice, two to three new class options become available, each having their own weaknesses and strengths, which again have their own choices. This way, the player can try out new class combinations each playthrough.


Input and ideas are welcome! And of course, help is needed!

[Velensk]

I'm going to give you a standard precaution whenever this kind of thing is asked.

Most people who have the skills to do these kinds of things would rather work on their own projects. The project you are proposing is especially difficult as it will require building in a bunch of things that wesnoth was not designed for. In my experience ideas are generally in surplus as compared to labor and skills. Do not be overly discouraged though as the coding in Wesnoth is relatively easy and suitable for a beginner to learn. The people in the WML workshop are very generous with advice/help and will ease the learning process when you are stuck. I would personally advice that you play around and experiment with something a touch easier before you try this project but if you're ambitious you can try it. In order to start learning the easiest way would be to look at the code for the scenarios of a campaign you know well and see how the basic skeleton is formed. Making maps for campaigns is relatively easy. Opening up the map editor from the main menu you could get started right now if you felt like it.

As a less standard note for myself:
Wesnoth is not an ideal medium to tell a story. Things that make good story are often detrimental to gameplay and in some ways vice versa. On the RPG side, Wesnoths dynamics are designed for army on army conflicts and it would require quite a bit of tweaking to get them to the desired gameplay. I personally have never seen an RPGesk campaign that I've every really liked though many have tried (which is not to say that it cannot happen). It is harder to make interesting/varied challenges that are faceable by 5 units than it is is to do with an army and even if these units are highly customizable (though it has been done, you might want to look at some of Bob_The_Mighties RPGs or Wesband).

[Hulavuta]

Yeah, to reiterate what Velensk said with my own personal experiences...

When I started my first campaign, I actually did intend to learn the language, but I didn't want to make my own maps. This was holding me back. When I finally DID get around to making a map, I found it was MUCH easier than expected. (StarCraft campaign editor kind of discouraged me) The same with coding. In its most basic form, it's similar to the forum "coding" with simple [tags] and closing [/tags]. It's not like you have to do everything in binary or anything, everything is pretty straightforward. For example, setting objectives uses an [objectives] tag, putting an item on the field uses an [item] tag, to cause something to happen, it's simply [event].

I disagree somewhat with Velensk's second statement, as several campaigns have a good story, and it's what I've been attempting. However, story must fall second to gameplay. Sure, it may not make sense that you get attacked every other day, but nobody would want to play a campaign where there's no fighting. RPG's can also get frustrating since there are so many loss conditions and these happen to be your only guys.

[Noitakuningas]

I disagree somewhat with Velensk's second statement, as several campaigns have a good story, and it's what I've been attempting. However, story must fall second to gameplay. Sure, it may not make sense that you get attacked every other day, but nobody would want to play a campaign where there's no fighting. RPG's can also get frustrating since there are so many loss conditions and these happen to be your only guys.

My thoughts were that only Morningtide must survive, all other characters are voluntary. Of course, it'd be neat if them living or dying affected the course of the campaign.. hmm.

[Velensk]

Let me put it this way, if you only have 5 units, chances are you cannot afford to lose them even if you technically can.

[Noitakuningas]

Let me put it this way, if you only have 5 units, chances are you cannot afford to lose them even if you technically can.

You won't have only five units. You will have recruited troops as well, just not as much as usually. Except in some scenarios, of course.

[Noitakuningas]

We now have a few maps ready and we (or rather, my associate has) have already began working on the code. Any help would be appreciated. Especially if some artist could whip up a portrait or two, that would be great.

I'll update when we get more done.

[artisticdude]

We now have a few maps ready and we (or rather, my associate has) have already began working on the code. Any help would be appreciated. Especially if some artist could whip up a portrait or two, that would be great.

I'll update when we get more done.

Most people will actually want something playable before they decide to contribute to it. Right now it's all hear-say, and there's no guarantee the whole project won't suddenly fall apart. At least once it's in a playable state, people will be able to decide whether or not it's worth their while to contribute to it. And as discussed in Jetrel's article on attracting and keeping artists on an OSS game project (the same principles apply to OSS mods):

Instant Gratification is your friend:
Making the barrier-to-entry for contribution as casual as possible is really important, because it's usually only after they've tried making art for you, that a person will realize they love doing it. In most life activities, people don't decide they're going to do X, and then decide to like it. People try X casually, like it, and then decide they're going to continue doing it. If they don't have a chance to casually dabble in it, they don't get started. This is exactly the way most game-modders get started - frivolous dabbling with the included editors, which they find to be fun, and which snowballs into further work. This is probably the same factor that got everyone reading this article started on programming - you wrote something trivial in some friendlier programming environment, it worked, and the joy of creation kept you coming back for more. Instant gratification is really important - it creates momentum and motivation.

Instant gratification is necessary to keep artists motivated. If an artist starts making a kind of asset for you, it's important for you to get it into the game and visible to them as soon as possible. It's very exciting to get that kind of approval of seeing it in the official build of the game, and vice-versa, it's very damning not to have one's work put to use. Artists rarely understand how difficult programming is, and will usually assume that you're not putting their art in because it's not welcome. It's also agnostic to either art or code, that they are not you; if you've put it on your mental checklist to take care of in a few weeks time, they're not aware of that. If you're not immediately working with a contributor of code/art/music, they usually will stop making more. This is fine for an one-off bugfix patch, but this is a death knell for someone who sending you the first in what might be an entire game's worth of models or sprites. You must follow up, you must work with them and keep them engaged. Almost all contributors who might contribute a whole game's worth of art will be lost if you don't get back to them in the space of a week - preferably a few days. This strongly speaks in favor of a RERO (release early, release often) policy.

There won't be any instant gratification if there isn't even a playable campaign for the artist(s) to see his/her/their work in. And in order for an artist to become interested in a project, there has to be an actual, tangible project for them to play around with and (potentially) work on. So my advice would be: wait until you've got something playable until you start asking for artistic assistance.

[Noitakuningas]

We now have a few maps ready and we (or rather, my associate has) have already began working on the code. Any help would be appreciated. Especially if some artist could whip up a portrait or two, that would be great.

I'll update when we get more done.

Most people will actually want something playable before they decide to contribute to it. Right now it's all hear-say, and there's no guarantee the whole project won't suddenly fall apart. At least once it's in a playable state, people will be able to decide whether or not it's worth their while to contribute to it. And as discussed in Jetrel's article on attracting and keeping artists on an OSS game project (the same principles apply to OSS mods):

Instant Gratification is your friend:
Making the barrier-to-entry for contribution as casual as possible is really important, because it's usually only after they've tried making art for you, that a person will realize they love doing it. In most life activities, people don't decide they're going to do X, and then decide to like it. People try X casually, like it, and then decide they're going to continue doing it. If they don't have a chance to casually dabble in it, they don't get started. This is exactly the way most game-modders get started - frivolous dabbling with the included editors, which they find to be fun, and which snowballs into further work. This is probably the same factor that got everyone reading this article started on programming - you wrote something trivial in some friendlier programming environment, it worked, and the joy of creation kept you coming back for more. Instant gratification is really important - it creates momentum and motivation.

Instant gratification is necessary to keep artists motivated. If an artist starts making a kind of asset for you, it's important for you to get it into the game and visible to them as soon as possible. It's very exciting to get that kind of approval of seeing it in the official build of the game, and vice-versa, it's very damning not to have one's work put to use. Artists rarely understand how difficult programming is, and will usually assume that you're not putting their art in because it's not welcome. It's also agnostic to either art or code, that they are not you; if you've put it on your mental checklist to take care of in a few weeks time, they're not aware of that. If you're not immediately working with a contributor of code/art/music, they usually will stop making more. This is fine for an one-off bugfix patch, but this is a death knell for someone who sending you the first in what might be an entire game's worth of models or sprites. You must follow up, you must work with them and keep them engaged. Almost all contributors who might contribute a whole game's worth of art will be lost if you don't get back to them in the space of a week - preferably a few days. This strongly speaks in favor of a RERO (release early, release often) policy.

There won't be any instant gratification if there isn't even a playable campaign for the artist(s) to see his/her/their work in. And in order for an artist to become interested in a project, there has to be an actual, tangible project for them to play around with and (potentially) work on. So my advice would be: wait until you've got something playable until you start asking for artistic assistance.

There is no ill in asking. Everyone can make their own choices whether they want to contribute or not.

[TheGreatRings]

This sounds like it has potential, and I really wish I could help. Unfortunately, I'm short on time until summer. I could possibly contribute something if you needed another writer, but that does not appear to be the case.

Good luck though, this sounds like it could be good. Wesnoth can always use another RPG.