Splitting thread from luck for discussion of 1.8r1

[Captain_Wrathbow]

That said, you can probably save the old sprites somewhere on your harddrive and replace the new ones manually in your 1.8 folder. It'd take some time, but if you hate the new ones so, who's stopping you?

I don't remember who it was, but didn't someone make a patch to replace the new drake sprites with the old ones? Lol.

[mystic x the unknown]

This is about the squillionth time I've seen this critique - where was everyone who thought this when we were DESIGNING the freaking sprites? It wasn't exactly a secret what was going on, and we probably would have been willing to listen if people had said it back at the base frame stage, rather than the 'everything done and committed' stage.

Srsly, this bugs me quite a lot. The best thing about having open source development is that problems like this can be picked up at the source.

If people are willing to provide constructive critique EARLY in the process, we listen fairly. At that point. But if they wait til the finished product and whine about how they don't like it, it's just irritating.

It wasn't exactly a secret, but it wasn't widely known either. When people had objections to the art while it was still work in progress, it was a mistake on their part that they haven't spoken up. However not only some people didn't know about it, those who did were even discouraged from commenting on, as only art contributors may post on the art development forum. The reason these posts appear is because the posters just discovered these graphics in game. (like the author of this thread)

The great thing about opensource is that if you don't like something you can fork.

in theory: yes. however in practice you'd need to get enough interested people with the right skills to donate their time, and keep them interested enough not to leave, which gets even harder as their opinions and wishes begin to clash.

A fair assessment of art would be to allow non-artists/developers who have no stake/prejudice to vote on which they like better, can be done months after 1.8 is out if you feel nostalga is big factor. My personal opinion is art is around same and each change leads to relearning/confusion.

This is really a dismissive statement to all the hard work the artists have done. The idea that their work could be thrown out on a whim is a bit insulting. You're talking about hours and hours of work. Unpaid, volunteer time.

An ordinary contributor has to live with the possibility that his work is eventually going to be replaced. Work has been and is going to be thrown out.(lots of art and music and other things that needn't be listed) Not at users' whim but at resposible developer's decision. But it's been only thrown own out when there was a replacement for it, which I belive would be the case here as well. That could make some of these 'complainers' to actually make something, potentially improving the game.

[Rya]

This is really a dismissive statement to all the hard work the artists have done. The idea that their work could be thrown out on a whim is a bit insulting. You're talking about hours and hours of work. Unpaid, volunteer time.

But is that really a valid argument? After all the old drakes sprites probably also were hours of volunteer time. So if you decide between two graphic sets it's fair to assume they both took a lot of work to be done.

My opinion on the sprites is:

Similarity:
Old: Fairly similar.
New: Most are a bit less similar, however the glider-tree is what strikes me as too similar in the new version. Compare old and new, they look completely different in the old version, but almost exactly the same in the new one.

Quality:
Old: I liked how they fit well to the other wesnoth graphics.
New: They look qualitatively better, however I think they don't fit much with the other faction anymore, because or their 'comic book' look, while other Wesnoth units have a more 'medieval' look.


Also what about the argument that critique should only be done before something got completed? I don't agree to that at all. There are quite many games that don't even have a beta and once they got released there are still some bugs and stuff found by the players. Those things actually DO get fixed to a pretty high percentage. Also my friend is drawing Mangas and asks me for critique on his finished pictures and even reworks them from scratch sometimes.
Hell even I did add whole features to my finished games because someone suggested them and I thought they were a good idea.

[Unnheulu]

Hell even I did add whole features to my finished games because someone suggested them and I thought they were a good idea.

And the wesnoth developers don't do that?

It's people like you who stop a project moving forward; even your signature can be seen as detrimental...

Another point is wesnoth is *not* finished; and probably never will be. There is always something new that can be added to a project, or a bug somewhere, or something that could be made easier. If you think the world of programming is all "it's finished now; I needn't add anything" then your very much mistaken.

You could mention commerical games, but, even those have updates (Stronghold 2 deluxe has had 3 or 4 in the last 2 years, Civilisation 4 seems to get a load, elastomania; need I continue?)

Who did ciritism help? No-one. We should praise rather than critise. Someone put hours into those sprites. END OF SUBJECT (For me at least )

[Rya]

And the wesnoth developers don't do that?

They do, even though they only listen to a small portion of the suggestions (but I do that do with my games and I think that's fine).

It's people like you who stop a project moving forward

Why?

even your signature can be seen as detrimental

It's more of an insider joke referring to "Little Britain" where one guy wants to buy an airplane ticket and the woman at the counter keeps saying "The computer says no." (referring to that there is no flight available). I thought this kind of reflects the general mood I drew from this forums, because like 2 times a day a thread with a (probably bad) idea is made and the thread always ends up with a developer posted that it's not gonna happen.
Remove randomness - No.
Make campaigns easier - No.
Change back the drake sprites - No.
(I mean they even made a big list of things they will say "No" to)
However you shouldn't see this as some negative opinion about the developers.

Another point is wesnoth is *not* finished; and probably never will be.

That is actually a pro-argument for criticism, is it not?

You could mention commerical games, but, even those have updates (Stronghold 2 deluxe has had 3 or 4 in the last 2 years, Civilisation 4 seems to get a load, elastomania; need I continue?)

Yes I was referring to commercial games to begin with. This again is another pro-argument for criticism.

Who did ciritism help? No-one. We should praise rather than critise.

Criticism helps more than praise.
Are you going to raise a child by only praising it?

[Unnheulu]

Look, like I said, to me it's the end of subject; don't expect anymore replies from me, cause I don't want to raise my blood pressure any more than necessary

[thespaceinvader]

Regarding the sprites: in a battle of opinion about their looks, yours loses. I'm not trying to be harsh, but we make the decisions based on our opinions. In our opinion, the new sprites look much better, and fit much better with the rest of the look of the game. The old ones were really ugly, the wings made no sense, the lurid green weapons made no sense, some of the colours were frankly bizarre, they had no team colour, and despite canonically as large as man and horse combined for some of the larger ones, were no bigger than the rest of the sprites.

The new ones are much more unique, make a lot more sense, are big enough to fit the canon, and are generally much MUCH better looking. They also have TC, and have weapons that look like they're made out of actual material, rather than lime jello. We kept a lot of the more unique elements of the sprites, particularly the distinctive appearance of the Clasher line, whilst improving a lot of the negatives from the previous sprites.

There may be some issues with them being difficult to tell apart - I don't deny that it's an issue. If you were willing to actually make some suggestions to improve matters, rather than just complaining, and put the time in to help enact them, we'd be more appreciative - but complaints don't help, valid or otherwise. We did some things to try to improve it, like making the level 3 glider fly constantly, rather than landing.

And to answer your point about this invalidating the work of the previous artist: the same artist made both sets of base frames. He had been wanting to replace the old ones for some time.

[Zerovirus]

Ugh.

After reading this thread I've lost a bit of faith in what exactly we're trying to do in art contribs and workshop. Seriously, is this what we get? You people show up after art forums have finished stuff and demand changes?

Seriously. This thread pisses me off.

[Gambit]

They were works in progress for several(?) months in an open forum which even brand new users can post in. You've been here for four years.

That being said, a few of the artists do, in fact, post debut material in the closed art forums at a completely finished stage. See the latter pages of this thread. *BUT* even then you can PM them. I did actually concerning a Merman wearing a bandanna, and while my critique did not change anything I got an explanation of why something was how it was that invalidated my criticism. So as far as I can see there are still no excuses.

[pauxlo]

"sprites and animations require you to relearn"

(In my opinion) drake sprites are not any prettier than before but it takes time to quickly tell difference between drake fighter, burner, glider, etc.

If I compare the left column in http://units.wesnoth.org/1.8/C/mainline.html#Drakes to the left column in http://units.wesnoth.org/1.6/C/mainline.html#Drakes, the ones in the second seem more similar to each other.

In 1.6 all had the same red wings, burner and fighter also the same grey-brown skin color.
In 1.8 we only could mix fighter and glider by skin color, but the last one obviously has neither armor nor weapons.
(Disclaimer: I did not play in quite some time, neither old nor new.)

So, at least for people not used to any look, the new ones are better distinguishable, not worse.

[pauxlo]

It could be squares and circles and I'd still play wesnoth.

I'm waiting for someone to make such an era.

[ancestral]

If you don't like something then put work in to make it better.

Criticism and feedback is great, when it's constructive, but it boils down to this: the next step is to help find a solution.

[INB681]

Hi there,

I'm new to the forum, but totally not new to the game. As I see it the subject of the drake sprites seems to be raising blood pressure for some people.

Though I don't really have the right to say this as I'm new here, the old 1.6 drake death animations were like this: the body of the dying drake released its 'internal fire' (quoting from the drakes description) and burned the remains to ashes.
The new animations have them fading away. This somewhat clashes with the description now.
But, aside to that, I really appreciate the new art. The art contributors don't deserve the kind of criticism they are getting.

[Zerovirus]

The new animations are just fading away because the artdevs haven't gotten around to doing death animations yet.

[thespaceinvader]

We will be redoing the death animations, eventually - currently they don't have any at all. But getting them looking good is an awful lot of work, and wasn't in the purview of the summer project which reworked the spites.

I make no guarantees as to when this will be - our stable of animators is small and busy, with little available time. But it will be done eventually.