Shifting Elvish Sorceress (and Human Mage) - Racial purity?

[Orcish Shyde]

I think having the same mage unit appear in two factions highlights how they're independent of the Loyalist government. They help whichever side they feel is in the right (or, depending on the mage, pays them better) even if it means they have to fight their fellows.

Course that's just a in-world excuse for a design decision.

As far as I know the Wesnoth mage academy is still sworn to the King, so in those instances where magi work against the Crown, they're no better legally than the outlaw units of the Knalgan Alliance. Yes, we'd probably need new descriptions for all the "Rebel Mage, Rebel Red Mage, Rebel Silver Mage, Rebel Arch Mage, Rebel Great Mage, Rebel White Mage, Rebel Mage of Light" that would logically arise (and a better name for "Rebel Mage of Light" if none of the others) but descriptions aren't that hard to write. They might not even be needed for the White Magi at least, since I got the impression that they drop out of magic school half-taught and join monastic orders to help people - kinda like students volunteering for charity IRL, only more hardcore

[Cernunnos]

Hi,

OK, that's a one old month topic, but i just thought about something now, sorry...
Please regard this as my personal opinion, but i hope it would be relevant enough.

And this is not pointed very often in all those topics i read about the fact that a human mage appears in the elf faction.

The human mage is human.

So changing it to an elf mage would change too much things.

1) no level 1 unit with any magic attack is neutral, mages/adepts are lawful or chaotic which is really important regarding gameplay. (ensnare is not magical)
Mages can became neutral at level 2, while elf shamans get a magic attack at level 2.

2) human mage and dark adept have the same resistances. (while shaman has really better defense overall)

For those two reasons, and because balance has been made for those characteristics, it seems that the rebel mage should not be change.

You may have notice i put elf and rebels in italic, that's a third point, rebels are not elves. If you doubt about it, play with elves only while playing with the rebel faction or play with dwarves only when playing with the knalgan faction. (and never use saurians while playing drakans...)

Well, sorry for the tone i'm using, but at last i would like to say those who want to change the human mage in the rebel faction should only change it's sprite, not its characteristics.
Edit: and i think no one will do it when asked, since this is not a real needed thing.

Thanks a lot, forgive my english, bye.

(maybe you should unit all the threads about this Mr Admins?)

[Thrawn]

If someone comes up with decent art for a new more elven mage, with all levels, genders, and animations, then I'm sure that the case would be given a bit more weight. However, as it is now, the change is purely aesthetic.. even with the new art, it would still be the same unit. I personally find it would be even more cheap to have two different units with the same stats. One could then make the argument that you could change the unit's stats to keep the niche the mage filled w/o having to rebalance everything, but again, the onus is on you to come up with the improved stats first, and be able to explain how it would be an improvement over just keeping the mage.

Also, regarding "either get rid of it or do it to other factions," you forget that the magi are the easiest unit to be given this duel role, as personality wise magi wouldn't mind staying along side elves, because of their immense knowledge. All other pairings would have *no* real justifiable reason, outside of the contrived plot of a campaign, to remain with the other faction.

[nnn]

Me for myself plays only MP, and i have no problem with the mage being in 2 faction, i evel like the fact, that seeing a mage, leaves you uncertain about enemy faction (what can combine with the whoose and ranger being hidden)

But also form the "storie" side the following would be quite a solution

Since "Mages" sound a little like the wesnoth version of an "ancient scientist". some kind of guys that seek knowledge for some more moralistic resasons than the dark adepts. Since the elfen people can easyly be considered an old and misterious culture its is quite logic for a mage to go into the forrest an try to study this culture.

So if you plan, to make another mage with equal or similar stats i suggest to make him some kind of "sociologist". with art that underlines his preference to travel vs staying in a large tower and learning from a "master"

Both lev1 mages are more less at the beginning of there carrer to become a wise and old ...

so the existing lev2+ units could stay like they are, but the 2 mages (loyalists and rebelous) gets seperated a bit

1 gets a loyal schoolar that sit at home reading the books his master gives him
1 travels out on his own rebelling vs the close walls of tradition that he feels would imprisson him and travels out to learn from the rebellous elfes

And the later doesnt make him to someone that benefits from forrest or moves faster there cause he still concentrates on learning magic not playing "survival in the nature"

So maybe even the sprites can remain the same, just a change in name

"Student of Magic" or "Mage Scholar", ...
vs
"Rebellious Mage"

and a new nice description text

or something like that

[Turuk]

So maybe even the sprites can remain the same, just a change in name

"Student of Magic" or "Mage Scholar", ...
vs
"Rebellious Mage"

and a new nice description text

I understand the reasoning behind the idea, and it is a good one to establish a separation between the two, but I see this confusing a number of people. They will see two units with different names that have the same sprite art and same stats.

[nnn]

yes you are right, another sprite would be needed (portrait and stuff of course later too)

I want to repeat, that i personaly like the equal unit in 2 faction, and i dont have a problem with it.

But also if "u" (someone) wants to change that, i think that the seperation i suggested (rebelous vs a honest schoolar) would be very good. specialy better than making an elven mage or whatver.

The art is quite alot work, for something that has so little efect, so this will posibly not happen, if noone feels like he have to paint a 2nd mage

[p0ss]

It wouldn't nessecarily have to be completely new sprites, most of it could just be recolouring. green robes instead of brown, blue mages instead of red, and the white mages could become nature mages.

[Turuk]

This thread should have been left dead, as it went the same route as this one.

Mage Unit

Also, the other threads linked in the above thread emphasize that all of the debates about the mage unit reaches a certain point, and people come to the conclusion that it comes down to art. So I think this thread has reached the point where someone needs to actually step up and do the art, and then it could be debated further.

[p0ss]

What in the bloody hell is the use of doing up all the graphics for the biggest unit tree in the game, just to have it knocked back later?

Seems worth while trying to figure out if it is even worth spending all that time on something that people disagre on. Like if i were to make all the robes green, and then someone came forth and said the robes should be yellow, then i would have wasted a whole heap of time that could have bee avoided by talking about it.

[p0ss]

Also, if you are so dead set keen on people trawling through the thousands of back posts before they bring up an issue, perhaps we could move to a system that allows you to do so easily, with advanced search, tags and categories. Something like drupal maybe. These kinds of boards are one of the worst ways of storing information, and asking anyone to go through a back catalogue of thousands of threads just to find out if their little issue has been discussed before, it more than ridiculous.

[Turuk]

Seems worth while trying to figure out if it is even worth spending all that time on something that people disagre on. Like if i were to make all the robes green, and then someone came forth and said the robes should be yellow, then i would have wasted a whole heap of time that could have bee avoided by talking about it.

Firstly, it has been debated. Endlessly. No one has bothered to even attempt to do art, and yes, there have been those who have outlined how they would color the sprites, make them look, and everything.

Also, if you are so dead set keen on people trawling through the thousands of back posts before they bring up an issue, perhaps we could move to a system that allows you to do so easily, with advanced search, tags and categories. Something like drupal maybe. These kinds of boards are one of the worst ways of storing information, and asking anyone to go through a back catalogue of thousands of threads just to find out if their little issue has been discussed before, it more than ridiculous.

Learn to search? It takes a matter of a few minutes to find those threads. And this has not just been brought up once or twice, but multiple times. In case you have not caught on how the Ideas forum is viewed, it is only worth reviving a dead idea/starting a new thread on it if you have something new to add.

What have you possibly added that is new? You are rehashing the same old material.

[Rimbecano]

Wouldn't a much simpler solution to the whole thing be just to add the faction of the unit in parentheses after the unit name? Something like "Mage (Rebel)" and "Mage (Loyalist)"?

[Skizzaltix]

Wouldn't a much simpler solution to the whole thing be just to add the faction of the unit in parentheses after the unit name? Something like "Mage (Rebel)" and "Mage (Loyalist)"?

A pretty good idea, but it brings us around to an even simpler idea: Leave them the same

[Rimbecano]

Wouldn't a much simpler solution to the whole thing be just to add the faction of the unit in parentheses after the unit name? Something like "Mage (Rebel)" and "Mage (Loyalist)"?

A pretty good idea, but it brings us around to an even simpler idea: Leave them the same

Fine with me. I threw that out as a fairly simple compromize solution. It should satisfy the people who want a distinction without requiring as much work as creating and maintaining graphics for the two lines. (In fact, there are a fair number of games that label every unit with its faction in its unit data. Of course, in such games all factions tend to have the same, or very nearly the same, units.)

[JW]

A pretty good idea, but it brings us around to an even simpler idea: Leave them the same

Fine with me. I threw that out as a fairly simple compromize solution. It should satisfy the people who want a distinction without requiring as much work as creating and maintaining graphics for the two lines. (In fact, there are a fair number of games that label every unit with its faction in its unit data. Of course, in such games all factions tend to have the same, or very nearly the same, units.)

I actually like the simplist idea that you just mentioned the best.