"A Gryphon's Tale" campaign

[Elvish_Hunter]

I would have no idea what changes need to be made if it weren't for people here talking about them, and I imagine searching the rest of the forum or wiki to find out would be difficult!

It's always nice to see old users coming back every now and then If you need any help, or just want to talk about any ideas, I'd like to remind you that we also have a Discord server and that you can ask questions in its #modding channel (bridged on the libera.chat IRC network as #wesnoth-umc-dev).

[Ringcaat]

Ah, I can't be reminded about the Discord server because I never knew about it! But I am on Discord and may well avail myself of that.

For now, I need to download the newest version of Wesnoth and remind myself how to play a campaign.

[Ringcaat]

I have returned to my old campaign! Which is to say, I've downloaded it as an add-on for Wesnoth 1.19 and played it through, such as it is. I did not look at the maps or most of the scenario files. Perhaps I'll fix things up; perhaps I'll even finally finish this work! It seems appropriate for me to report on what I found, having stepped mostly away from the game for some thirteen years. Perhaps some of these observations could easily be explained with a bit of digging here on the forum or wiki or such, but I think a good first step is to share what I found here.


GENERAL NOTES:

- I see that there are now complex character portraits, some of which are recolored gryphons. Neli is vivid and Miolu is dark... I would have made Miolu pale instead, but it's nifty someone bothered to recolor the characters at all. Grankha is red, and Neli's dad (Juaragoa?) has no portrait. I have no complaints about the game's other awesome portraits, except maybe for the three elvish rangers being alike.

- I have some notes on dialogue here and there that I'd like to change. Sometimes it's corny lines or exchanges that go on too long; sometimes it's faulty setting logic; sometimes it's changes someone else made, some of which have punctuation errors or the like. I won't note these specific issues below.

- I see that I changed the zolpha's cave wall defense to be 98% instead of 99%... to be sporting, I assume. I think I want to make it 99 again, but raise the level of XP needed to level them. I also reduced the movement needed for an "impassable" cave tile to 10 instead of 12. Not at all sure about the weird pizolpha stats; for now I've reduced their attack to 2 instead of 25.

- I copied the format of other units in adding automatic AMLA to the Gryphon Chieftain and Pizolpha. I think Noble Gryphons may be too easy to level up; Neli reached Chieftain by scenario 6.

- Why is there a Young Gryphon unit in the files?


SCENARIO BY SCENARIO:

1) CAPTURE THE FLAG: On my first playthrough, after turn 1, the enemy (technically allied) units didn't move at all. The first scenario appeared to be totally broken. But when I played again, they did move. I think getting them not to move part of the time is part of the winning strategy, so I suppose that's okay. I should probably hint at this somehow, at least on EASY difficulty. Maybe there should be dialogue for when they don't move.

The winning strategy is a little lame, but I don't have a better idea for non-lethal flag capturing!

2) ZOLPHA HUNT: Exploring the blackness, a big change after the last scenario. This is cool! I didn't explore the whole map in-game, so I'm not sure it's in great shape, but I enjoyed the exploration challenge. Nothing seemed wrong with this scenario except that it's maybe a little too easy.
- I remember having awesome music for it a long time ago; I wonder if I could find good music now and figure out how to implement it.

3) CANYON RACE: This scenario was always my bane; so hard to get right, so tedious to play even if everything worked. As such, I don't dare have a high standard for it now. That said, it actually does seem to work properly on NORMAL difficulty, which is what I used for my revisitation.

Some possible changes to make:
- Fewer spectators, or have some just watch.
- A little more hintage about what to do. It came back to me after I saw the rock, but even after all this time I have an unfair advantage.
- Maybe the racers (except Eleitri?) should stop moving after the landslide.
- Got to review how EASY and HARD difficulty work; I think maybe Zebby is able to move in one.
- Add dialogue for the turn on which the spectators would have caught Zebby but are blocked.

4) ALPHA CEREMONY: This scenario is mostly fine.
- Maybe add a hint?
- Increase the turn limit slightly?
- A little more tundra to work with? Widen the map one hex on each side?

5) ORCISH ATTACK: This is the first traditional battle and it still seems fun.
- I think perhaps the zolphas should be cheaper - 12 or 13 gold.
- It seems like the Saurians are a little different from how they used to be. I should look at the race and see if there's a better unit choice available.
- A sound for the whistling orb would be good! I think I had one once.
- Why did one bat survive the orb? Was it a Dread Bat? I think so.
- Possibly there should be different messages at the end of the scenario, depending on how well things are going.
- As others have pointed out, I should change that fourth-wall-breaking error message about killing Ech'Paktorrim. I may still break the fourth wall with it, but acknowledge that it's possible.

6) ORCISH PRISON: Some commenters in this thread said this level wasn't fun. Maybe not? I had to admit it was tedious testing it.
- I would maybe change the gryphons to use 2 hexes on cave instead of 3, but that would mess with the existing gryphon unit. Now I'm thinking I should scatter in some sand or flat ground to give an occasional extra movement hex.
- The alarm text was on the screen too briefly!
- Should there be a hint of where to go? I don't think there are that many choices. Maybe on EASY.
- In testing, I created some pizolphas. Since that advancement is important to the plot later in the elven branch, there ought to be a message for it. Maybe in the previous scenario too, even.
- The ability to recall saurians has been removed because it apparently cheeses this scenario too much. I'm not sure I agree, but I definitely want them available for later scenarios, so I think I'll reverse that.

7) THE REVENANT: I like the writing! This scenario seems perfect as is.

THE NECROMANCERS: This battle is still fun! I used a different strategy from the one I originally noted and it still worked well.
- Is Coastal Reef a new terrain type?
- Why can't my pizolpha move quickly through the forest? Each hex takes 6 MP instead of 1. Maybe the game doesn't allow ridiculously high movement stats like 36 anymore.
- Neat that the orcish grunts have cloaks in their unit color! I bet other units do too, but I didn't notice it until here.

9) TURNING POINT: I like the dialogue I wrote and am still excited about the choice this scenario provides.
- Hmm, I see some dialogue has backslashes in it that should be removed. In addition, some lines are too long and need to be scrolled horizontally. Should address that.
- I didn't play the combat option for this scenario, so that still needs to be tested.

10A) TRAVEL GAMES: This scenario seems fine, except that on NORMAL difficulty it's too easy.

11A) FARCEL BIRONZE: Okay, this scenario is unfortunately completely broken. The next scenario is perhaps inaccessible because this one can't be beaten.
- There are no zolphas! Well, okay, I do remember a secret hex you can stand on to make them appear. But I didn't see the hint for it I remember, and the hex I suspected it was didn't work. At the very least, there should be dialogue about finding zolphas.
- "I've never actually seen a pizolpha," says Neliflua. Really? It's possible to level them before now.
- The enemy leaders are recruiting the wrong kinds of units! They should be recruiting drakes, not elves. And in particular, we *really* need them to recruit cockatrices on this level. Maybe it's as simple as my having to define the teams in a new way.
- I wonder if we're supposed to be able to beat the enemies here, or just hang on. It may be too hard.
- I wonder if it's possible to start this level with more gold if you do well in previous scenarios. It's not clear whether it should be, as Neli is separated from her troops.

10B) RETALIATION: I was able to bring in extra gold and beat this scenario convincingly; the balance seemed right. But...
- Again, the enemies are recruiting the wrong types of units! They're elves and should be recruiting elves, not orcs.
- The house of healing appeared in a village near the middle of the map, not the top one as it should have been. Maybe it was the first village I encountered? So that's something to fix.

11B) REVOLT: I remember this scenario as being especially elaborate and long and (possibly) cool, but alas! The map isn't found, so I can't play it. Ohhkay.


Well! That's a fair bit for me to do if I decide to fully fix up this campaign, to say nothing of extending it. But it's not an absurd amount; it may well be worthwhile. I wonder if enough people still enjoy custom Wesnoth campaigns to make it worthwhile! And even if I don't want to figure everything out, there are a number of changes I can make easily, if I can just figure out how to upload a new version. That's surely worth doing.

Anyone have any thoughts on any of this?

[Argesilao2]

- I see that there are now complex character portraits, some of which are recolored gryphons. Neli is vivid and Miolu is dark... I would have made Miolu pale instead, but it's nifty someone bothered to recolor the characters at all. Grankha is red, and Neli's dad (Juaragoa?) has no portrait. I have no complaints about the game's other awesome portraits, except maybe for the three elvish rangers being alike.

When I started testing the campaign, I immediately found it strange that all the griphons in the dialogues looked the same; so I took GIMP and changed the colors of the original portrait, obtaining three distinguishable ones.
Unfortunately, I have zero talent for drawing, and this is the fastest method I could think of.
I believe the elf rangers all have the same portrait simply because it's the default for the unit type; you could take different portraits from other mainline campaigns, such as Legend of Wesmere, for example.

- Why is there a Young Gryphon unit in the files?

My fault; at first I thought of using them to somehow differentiate the Gryphlet graphics or the Gryphon-kind units; when I gave up on modifying the campaign I forgot to delete the related files.

Well! That's a fair bit for me to do if I decide to fully fix up this campaign, to say nothing of extending it. But it's not an absurd amount; it may well be worthwhile. I wonder if enough people still enjoy custom Wesnoth campaigns to make it worthwhile!

I can't say how much fun people have playing old campaigns; I can say that for me, old campaigns have often been a source of new ideas for campaigns I've created, regardless of whether I liked the campaign or not.

[hunter_z]

It looks like some things broke in the recent update, the Revolt scenario definitely worked on older versions (up to 1.10 maybe? that was about the time I took a long break form BfW anyway) and I don't recall the wrong recruits happening in older versions either. I actually never managed to beat Revolt though, there were other scenarios in the files but I don't know if they were ever fully implemented or not.

Also, I'd love to make some proper portrait recolors! I always imagined Miolu having light feathers in my headcanon too. Have you checked out my zipped archive on the previous page yet? It consists of recolored gryphon sprites and a few unique portraits (or maybe just one portrait, I don't remember). I gave the chieftain sprite a feather on the head, but I don't remember if I added one to the portrait too or not. Let me know if you'd like any of the sprites recolored too, to have them match your original vision more closely. I'll make a unique portrait for each advancement but the main characters can also have unique portraits separating them from other gryphons of the same advancement. Neliflua's sprite was colored after the default gryphon portrait, so maybe I could color Miolu's portrait after the default gryphon sprite? Sort of a fun swap.

I also included some map redesigns in the archive but not all of them have been playtested and some of them didn't have the scripts updated so they're likely not ready for playing it, but you can open them and look at them in the map editor, or check the screenshots I posted. I also remember making small changes like adding more spectators in the alpha ceremony because it was a big deal event and seemed appropriate, lol.