Better Wesnoth summary needed

Post by **Dave** » January 24th, 2005, 12:44 pm

I wrote a long post about this, but it got deleted

Anyhow, the summary on our website looks like this:

The Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game with a fantasy theme.

Build your army, selecting, from one mission to the next one, your most experienced fighters. Fighters you did recruit among a great number of units, offering various strategic strengths and weaknesses on different terrains and against different opponents.

(screenshot)

Fight to gain back the throne of Wesnoth, of which you are the legitimate heir. Or use your dreaded power on undead to achieve domination on those foul mortals, or get a revenge for your glorious orcish tribe against these puny human armies who dared stealing your land... stories are waiting to be told. Or maybe you want to challenge your friends or strangers on multiplayer epic fantasy battles.

This summary has been lifted onto many many other sites which link to Wesnoth. Although the first paragraph of the summary is fairly good, the other two are not.

It'd be nice if we had proposals for alternative summaries. They may be re-writes of the current summary in a less awkward way, or they may be entirely new. Please post proposals as replies in this thread.

David

Post by **turin** » January 24th, 2005, 1:24 pm

Hm....

The Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game with a fantasy theme.

Build your army over a series of missions, selecting your most experienced fighters from a great number of units offering various strategic strengths and weaknesses on different terrains and against different opponents.

(screenshot)

Not sure what you'd put at the bottom. And now that paragraph is only one sentence.. but it makes more sense, IMHO.

Post by **quartex** » January 24th, 2005, 8:29 pm

Darn, it seems that posts made last night got deleted last night somehow. At about 12:30 AM EST, I responded to a great post aelius had made with a new description for the main page. He did a great job of writing a new description for wesnoth and the campaigns. Unfortunately I think the post may be lost forever, unless he saved a copy of it before he posted it on the boards.

I suppose we have to remember that when the boards go down, we should remember that anything we post soon afterwards could be lost too.

aelius · Post by **aelius** » January 24th, 2005, 9:06 pm

It was pretty good. And I tried to post it like 8 times! Let me see if I can channel the same muse.

Dave wrote:Build your army, selecting, from one mission to the next one, your most experienced fighters. Fighters you did recruit among a great number of units, offering various strategic strengths and weaknesses on different terrains and against different opponents.

Wesnoth features a variety of unique units grouped into distinct factions. Recruit the right soldier for the right battle and your victory is assured! Your troops gain experience and new abilities from victories in battle, so preserve your veterans for the battles to come!

Dave wrote:Fight to gain back the throne of Wesnoth, of which you are the legitimate heir. Or use your dreaded power on undead to achieve domination on those foul mortals, or get a revenge for your glorious orcish tribe against these puny human armies who dared stealing your land... stories are waiting to be told.

Lead the expedition from the Green Isle to found the kingdom of Wesnoth! Join the woodland elves and battle to reclaim your rightful place as King of Wesnoth! Command the loyal human armies as they confront the foul undead hordes in the East! Muster your Orcish horde in the North and drive the human invaders from your land! Delve into the dark arts and become a powerful sorceror! All these stories await you...

Build your tactical acumen in skrimishs against the a.i. opponent. Gather your friends for a round of hot-seat and taunting. Pit skill against skill, strategy against strategy, against friend and foe playing online. Battle your way through epic campaigns. Make your name one to be remembered.

- b.

Post by **quartex** » January 24th, 2005, 10:21 pm

Aelius, you did post about 4 times. When you post and it gives you the error message "can't open page posting.php" it doesn't mean you didn't post, it just means it can't load the confirmation page.

Thanks for trying to retype the intro. The one difference I noticed is that your dexcription of the Dark Hordes campaign last night made more explicit the fact that you are controlling lots of undead. Perhaps we should change:
"Delve into the dark arts and become a powerful sorceror!"
to
"Delve into the dark arts and lead hordes of undead against all who oppose you!"

aelius · Post by **aelius** » January 24th, 2005, 10:28 pm

quartex wrote:Aelius, you did post about 4 times. When you post and it gives you the error message "can't open page posting.php" it doesn't mean you didn't post, it just means it can't load the confirmation page.

Shows what I know. It was telling me that it couldn't load any data for any page on the fora...

Quartex wrote:Delve into the dark arts and lead hordes of undead against all who oppose you!

I like it. If we go with that, we should probably change the Orcs to:

"Muster your Orcish legions to drive the human invaders from your home in the North." so we don't use hordes so many times.

- b.

BigMoney · Post by **BigMoney** » January 26th, 2005, 5:51 am

This Wesnoth Newbie, after a few days' playing wrote:The Battle for Wesnoth is a turn-based strategy game with a fantasy theme.

Recruit strong warriors for close melees and trained troops for skilled attacks. Those that serve you well you may recall for the next battle in your quest. Know your enemy, and command your army to attack his weakness. Time will work for and against you as sun sharpens the lawful and night empowers the chaotic. Choose your steps wisely, for even the ground you stand upon may protect or expose you.

(screenshot)

Be the legitimate heir of Wesnoth and fight to reclaim your throne. Or raise your fellow dead, attack the foul mortals and impose your domination. Lead your tribe of orcs to reclaim your lands from the humans who invaded from beyond the Western seas. Meet your friends via hotseat or IP and pit the Wesnoth royal army, the outlaws, dwarves, elves, drakes and the undead against each other.

...Probably needs a little finessing. I was going for action words and less description while trying to give a gist of the game. I thought being a newbie might actually help....

ZombieEater · Post by **ZombieEater** » February 5th, 2005, 12:53 am

A little picky maybe, but

Be the legitimate heir of Wesnoth and fight to reclaim your throne. Or raise your fellow dead,

this sounds like it's one and the same person, which is true in RL, it's the player. But in the game, these are actually different people, i.e. Konrad, or the Necromancer, etc. Maybe it's just striking me because I've played it. Somebody new may not really notice.

Changes bolded:

Assume the role as the legitimate heir of Wesnoth and fight to reclaim your throne. Or follow the path of the Necromancer and raise your fellow dead, attack the foul mortals and impose your domination. Embody the leader of your tribe of orcs to reclaim your lands from the humans who invaded from beyond the Western seas. Meet your friends via hotseat or IP and pit the Wesnoth royal army, the outlaws, dwarves, elves, drakes and the undead against each other.

Post by **Quensul** » February 5th, 2005, 1:07 am

ZombieEater wrote: Play as the legitimate heir of Wesnoth and fight to reclaim your throne. Or follow the path of the Necromancer and raise your fellow dead, attack the foul mortals and impose your domination. Embody the leader of your tribe of orcs to reclaim your lands from the humans who invaded from beyond the Western seas. Meet your friends via hotseat or IP and pit the Wesnoth royal army, the outlaws, dwarves, elves, drakes and the undead against each other.

While we're being picky, ditch the "Or" at the beginning of the second sentence - it makes the whole sentence a prepositional phrase (I think? I never remember the name of that), and besides, it's more forceful starting it with an action verb ('Play... Follow... Embody... Meet....').

Also, an edit of the last sentence:

Meet your friends via hotseat or the Internet to pit the Wesnoth royal army, the outlaws, dwarves, elves, drakes and the undead against each other.

Not everyone knows what IP is, and there is a purpose to your meeting.

ZombieEater · Post by **ZombieEater** » February 5th, 2005, 1:12 am

Yea, I'll have to agree with that on second reading. Hey, give a non-native speaker a break.

I also replaced the "Play" with "Assume the role". Sounds classier, to me anyway.

Post by **Quensul** » February 5th, 2005, 1:23 am

ZombieEater wrote:Yea, I'll have to agree with that on second reading. Hey, give a non-native speaker a break.

I also replaced the "Play" with "Assume the role". Sounds classier, to me anyway.

:chuckle: Hey, I have the utmost respect for people who are bilingual - I'm really bad at non-English, non-programming languages.

I like "assume the role", but it needs to be "of the", instead of "as the".

A final tweak in bold:

Assume the role of the legitimate heir of Wesnoth and fight to reclaim your throne. Follow the path of the Necromancer and raise your fellow dead, attack the foul mortals and impose your domination. Embody the leader of your tribe of orcs to reclaim your lands from the humans who invaded from beyond the Western seas. Meet your friends via hotseat or the Internet to pit the Wesnoth royal army, the outlaws, dwarves, elves, drakes and the undead against each other.

For me, it's still a tossup between BigMoney's (of which the above is a part) and aelius's - personally, I would lean towards aelius's.

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