Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

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lujo86
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Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by lujo86 »

I've been (re)playing (and enjoying, tbh) the Heir to the Throne campaign, and I've played it many times before, but I would absolutely love to contribute to this great game by putting my writing skills to good use and doing something about the (often comically) awful dialogues. My eyes have unscrewed themselves from how much rolling they've been doing while reading it and I had to pick them up from the floor in order to make this post. When the lines are conceptually good, the execution and English skills are lacking. When the plot is engaging, the characters go off into long-winded adjective-laden monologue. When I'm just about to skip a character's line without even bothering, because all their lines have been written by someone who can only do rigid high fantafy style and whatever they say makes them feel like a plank of wood, suddenly in another scenario they get lines clearly written by someone else, who has a sense of humor and a bit more sense for pacing and delivery... but is clearly not a native speaker, and trips over the language. Not to mention this makes characters feel inconsistent.

And then there's the baffling amounts of unintentional comedy. Just:

X: "Where are we?"
Y: "We are in an ARID land..."
*screen you are looking at while being given this info is all taken up by a huge river and green islands in it*
player: "Wut"

There's just so much of this, people who wrote the stuff using every adjective they like and can think of, but not necessarily knowing what those words *mean*.

Anywho, belittling things is easy, and I hope I didn't cause the wrong impression, I'm just exasperated at how much nicer the game gets year after year, and the awful, awful writing just keeps killing it all this time. At the very least with this campaign, but since this is the flagship campaign, it just won't do. The game deserves better, and can get a lot better.

I'm a writer. Not a native English speaker, but I'm sorta sure that I'm better at using the language professionally than whoever wrote some of those lines. A lot of the lines. Can someone tell me where I can find the dialogue lines, and what I need to edit them, and instead of just dissing the mess I'll show you what it could look like if someone who gets paid for this sort of thing sat down and did it as if they were getting paid well. Except I'd do it for free.

Please.

Afterwards whoever is in charge can set it side by side with the original lines and see for themselves.
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

lujo86 wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 5:23 am I've been (re)playing (and enjoying, tbh) the Heir to the Throne campaign, and I've played it many times before, but I would absolutely love to contribute to this great game by putting my writing skills to good use and doing something about the (often comically) awful dialogues. My eyes have unscrewed themselves from how much rolling they've been doing while reading it and I had to pick them up from the floor in order to make this post. When the lines are conceptually good, the execution and English skills are lacking. When the plot is engaging, the characters go off into long-winded adjective-laden monologue. When I'm just about to skip a character's line without even bothering, because all their lines have been written by someone who can only do rigid high fantafy style and whatever they say makes them feel like a plank of wood, suddenly in another scenario they get lines clearly written by someone else, who has a sense of humor and a bit more sense for pacing and delivery... but is clearly not a native speaker, and trips over the language. Not to mention this makes characters feel inconsistent.

And then there's the baffling amounts of unintentional comedy. Just:

X: "Where are we?"
Y: "We are in an ARID land..."
*screen you are looking at while being given this info is all taken up by a huge river and green islands in it*
player: "Wut"

There's just so much of this, people who wrote the stuff using every adjective they like and can think of, but not necessarily knowing what those words *mean*.

Anywho, belittling things is easy, and I hope I didn't cause the wrong impression, I'm just exasperated at how much nicer the game gets year after year, and the awful, awful writing just keeps killing it all this time. At the very least with this campaign, but since this is the flagship campaign, it just won't do. The game deserves better, and can get a lot better.

I'm a writer. Not a native English speaker, but I'm sorta sure that I'm better at using the language professionally than whoever wrote some of those lines. A lot of the lines. Can someone tell me where I can find the dialogue lines, and what I need to edit them, and instead of just dissing the mess I'll show you what it could look like if someone who gets paid for this sort of thing sat down and did it as if they were getting paid well. Except I'd do it for free.

Please.

Afterwards whoever is in charge can set it side by side with the original lines and see for themselves.
For mainline, go to https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/issues and Make "prose (text/typo improvements) issues"
For UMC/add-ons, contact the author of the add-on
Last edited by Lord-Knightmare on February 3rd, 2023, 8:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by octalot »

lujo86 wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 5:23 am Can someone tell me where I can find the dialogue lines, and what I need to edit them, and instead of just dissing the mess I'll show you what it could look like
The dialog is spread across the scenario files, in data/campaigns/Heir_To_The_Throne/scenarios, with common text such as death dialogs in the utils directory too. These can be found in both the source code and installed as part of the game - the file structure remains the same.

For getting the entire text in a single file in (roughly) the order that it appears in the campaign, there's the translators' version in https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/blob ... h-httt.pot . That file is only in the source code, but it's reasonably plain word-wrapped text; GettextForTranslators explains the tools used when translating it. It's generated automatically from the scenario files, so don't worry about preserving formatting - any changes would need to go back into a different file anyway.

Thanks for the offer. Note that Nemaara (a.k.a. Yumi) would be the person that would need to approve changes, I just handle technical stuff.
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by lujo86 »

Ty so much guys, I'll check the links out and get hacking at it over the next week or so.
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by Helmet »

lujo86 wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 5:23 am I'm a writer.
I suspected you were a writer from your well-written scenario reviews.

If I could, I would pre-approve all your dialogue substitutions right now. But I'm just a regular guy.


Hello? Powers that be? Speaking as a guy who reads screenplays as a hobby, I implore you. . .exploit this offer!

Exploit it!
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by lujo86 »

Ok, I couldn't help myself so I just ran through the lines for the first mission and made first draft notes. I might not end up happy with every solution that first came to mind, but this is the sort of thing you'd get from basically any competent editor, just to show you guys that seemingly little things go a long way, and that I'm really about to seriously consider and give thought to every single line of it (even if I write a non-seriously toned comment about some). And this is also me hewing to the high-fantasy tone of the whole thing even though it's not my prefered style, but a pro writer should know how to properly play tunes that are not his favorites, too, so to speak.

First draft, mind you. Enjoy.
Spoiler:
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by Helmet »

Too prolix.

Just kidding, ha ha! (FYI, that was an obscure Catch-22 reference.)

Seriously, that is excellent stuff!
lujo86 wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 12:31 pm...I'd actually prefer to just use #$!#% like in older comic books because that way anyone can fill it in their mind themselves, which is convenient.
A person I know never substitutes a curse word in their mind, but skips over any "#$!#%" as if it were a blank space.

Personally, whenever I read "#$!#%," I substitute a long-ago decided-upon curse word, one too contemporary to be a good fit in a Wesnoth game. Heh.

In a Wesnoth scenario, I think I'd prefer an explicit insult. Insults are an opportunity to be creative! I used to own a book of Shakespearean insults ("I bite my thumb at thee!"), and it was pretty thick.

Moreover, I think an inventive insult might add some spice to the dialogue. I'll offer a few examples to prime the pump: disloyal villain; horrid fiend; crafty, smelly wretch; putrid bag of motherless filth.

:)
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by lujo86 »

Helmet wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 1:15 pm Too prolix.
:lol:
Helmet wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 1:15 pm Seriously, that is excellent stuff!
Ty. Some inapropriate word choices snuck in there, too, first draft and all that. For example Delfador shouldn't say "She is mad." But rather something like "She has lost her mind," and this is an example of my not being a native speaker causing me to slip some vernacular into a statement by an old sage which is supposed to have some gravity ("mad" is closer to "rabid" than it is to "insane", but I only noticed I slipped up there on a second look :lol: )

Words is code. Except the bugs don't cause the program to not work, but rather cause unintended consequences.
Helmet wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 1:15 pm Personally, whenever I read "#$!#%," I substitute a long-ago decided-upon curse word, one too contemporary to be a good fit in a Wesnoth game. Heh.
I know :lol: But the reason that convention got popular back in the day was precisely because it puts the choice on the reader, so it can't really fail as long as the reader is happy with what they read into it. If not - well, they put the wrong word in :lol:

Not saying I'd insist on using that, but it would be convenient, because:
Helmet wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 1:15 pm Insults are an opportunity to be creative!
This is a bit of a trap. In my native language insults and curses are an artform, but even though I come from a culture that raises you to leap at any opportunity to go nuts with them, the danger of nuking the players immersion with something too implausible / awkward / long / heavy / unspontaneous / etc is way too high. This is why "villain" and "rogue" fail, as they are way too likely to look silly due to people having recent connotations. Also why some of the insults in other places mess things up, since some of the name calling on part of the protagonists makes them look like bullies rather than the guys to cheer. It looks like such a simple thing, but picking the right warcries / insults is quietly a huge deal, and the artisan is advised to reign in the impluse to go nuts and instead do professional.

I also overindulged my urge to have Delfador's reply to the first thing Konrad says be "Peril!" fore the sake of cool, it messed up Konrads line because now I'm unhappy with the question it ends with :lol:

Anywho, gonna hit map 2 tomorrow, see what I can debug there :D

EDIT: Also, fun fact: Videogame text writing has a lot to do with drama and poetry, moreso than with prose. Makes it very fun to fiddle with if you're not just a prose enjoyer.
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by Helmet »

lujo86 wrote: February 4th, 2023, 4:01 am...But the reason that convention got popular...
In my opinion, "#$!#%" seems a bit too modern, like something you'd see in a Spider-Man comic.

Also, "#$!#%" is always a little funny.

Imagine Gandalf saying to Bilbo, "Where did you get that "#$!#% ring?"
lujo86 wrote: February 4th, 2023, 4:01 am This is why "villain" and "rogue" fail, as they are way too likely to look silly due to people having recent connotations.
Verily, words like rogue and villain bother me not one whit, scribe.
:)
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by octalot »

lujo86 wrote: February 3rd, 2023, 12:31 pm Having played this campaign multiple times, and giving up on bothering with the dialogue at some point every time, I, to this day, have a very vague idea about who exactly Konrad is, why he was with the elves to begin with, how old he is, and why all this is happening at the moment it is happening.
The answers to all of those except "why now" are covered in the intro, which plays when starting the campaign from the title screen (but whose text is at the bottom of the .pot file)*. There's nothing about her being a regent or about coming-of-age - she's Queen because officially all the heirs died. Also because she'll use the army against anyone who says she isn't (implied in the intro), although it's taken around 20 years for that policy to reach the western edge of the kingdom (not explained in HttT, it's the plot of the Liberty campaign).

* Certain details aren't revealed until the start of scenario 24 ("The battle had been long and hard. ..." and the following 3 paragraphs in the .pot file)

IMO your rewrite is focusing on the wrong points:

The intro's made it clear that the Queen will be the big-bad at the end of the story, but for the first 6 scenarios' story arc we already have "simple survival" as the protagonists' immediate motivation. Adding lots of references to the Queen in scenario 1 seems unnecessary.

Putting the names of the forest and the port in several times suggests that it's important for the player to learn them, but they're not significant. The port's name will be introduced in the scenario that's set there. The forest's name is on the map for players who want to know, but it only appears twice in dialogue - once in the intro, and once in S15 with obvious context "We have fled the Aethenwood last spring...". While Blackwater Port's name is significant for players to understand how other campaigns tie in to this one, they'll also have the maps to remind them, and the Isle of Alduin, Bay of Pearls and Elensefar can all function as landmarks for this.

Konrad should be grabbing experience points on the way, it's a false hint to tell the player that he needs to head for the signpost without stopping. OTOH, saying that he'd try to come back and rescue Delfador makes him sound stupid rather than likeable.
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by lujo86 »

octalot wrote: February 4th, 2023, 12:50 pm The answers to all of those except "why now" are covered in the intro, which plays when starting the campaign from the title screen (but whose text is at the bottom of the .pot file)*. There's nothing about her being a regent or about coming-of-age - she's Queen because officially all the heirs died. Also because she'll use the army against anyone who says she isn't (implied in the intro), although it's taken around 20 years for that policy to reach the western edge of the kingdom (not explained in HttT, it's the plot of the Liberty campaign).

* Certain details aren't revealed until the start of scenario 24 ("The battle had been long and hard. ..." and the following 3 paragraphs in the .pot file)
I'll check it out, first draft is a first draft and I was aware I'm not clear on that. Also, even players who skip the intro will likely read the dialogue, at least in the first scenario, so it's a better and more dynamic way to get things across.

---

This:
Konrad should be grabbing experience points on the way, it's a false hint to tell the player that he needs to head for the signpost without stopping. OTOH, saying that he'd try to come back and rescue Delfador makes him sound stupid rather than likeable.
contradicts this:
but for the first 6 scenarios' story arc we already have "simple survival" as the protagonists' immediate motivation.
In a huge way.

I know that it's entirely possible for Konrad and even his troops to grab experience, it's possible (and not very difficult at any difficulty) for Konrad and the troops to turn the battle completely, because of how messed-up powerful Delfador is. But that's something that the player can do if they go against what the original text tells them, and what the whole setup of the scenario implies. "Get to the signpost" is not a hint, it's literally the objective and I just kept it from the original text.

I personally think that "get to the signpost" is incredibly silly since this is very obviously a gameplay and story segreagation thing, where you're being told "put game object a onto game object b" rather than something a character would realistically tell another one (that would be something like "get to Blackwater Port" or "get to the road leading to Blackwater"). But I kept it the way it is because I figured that since this is the gameplay objective, it has to be like that for clarity sake.

I could, and wouldn't mind, make it different and have Delfador tell Konrad that Konrad can rally some elves and help defend as long as he makes it to the signpost before the bulk of the orcish army arrives. I was just trying to not stray too far from the original lines.
Putting the names of the forest and the port in several times suggests that it's important for the player to learn them, but they're not significant.
I only changed the multiple, equally "not significant", mentions of the Isle of Alduin to be about the more immediate destination of Blackwater Port, because that makes the situation more about immediate survival rather than long term plans, and, also, because the original text builds up the island as if it's going to be important when it's a very plain map and the place is just ruins, so it turns out to be a pointless sidetrack and is not worth building up story wise.

The fact that Blackwater introduces you to humans who resist the Queen and are willing to fight for Konrad ends up contributing to the story more than anything that happens on Alduin.

I might have overdone it by accident, I'll absolutely have another pass over the text.
The forest's name is on the map for players who want to know, but it only appears twice in dialogue


And this is actually a problem, because calling it "the south western forest", by/around people who've been living in it, makes the whole thing sound like it's a 15-year old's D&D campaign and they couldn't come up with names for places. These characters would know what the forest is called and would call it that, especially Konrad.

The scenario needs to establish the big bad, certainly has to very clearly bring across the fact that the huge orc army is there on behalf of the Queen and not just because they're orcs, and that they're looking for Konrad and Delfador specifically so that the two can't just stay there and fight. Otherwise it's just a random orc incursion into random elven lands because orcs bad and stinky and Konrad and Delfador should just stay there to kick the orcs ass and grind xp, and the player can very easily miss the fact that the campaign even has a story.

---

I'll certainly look into the intro, I was wondering where it was. Ty.

EDIT: Oh, and I can easily change Konrad's line about going back for Delfador, the reason I wrote it like that, provisionally, is because a) you lose if Delfador dies, too b) Konrad is already losing his home and his life so far and just wants to say that if it also means losing Delfador then he might as well stay fight to the end. It's everybody else (at this point) who cares about the fact that he is heir, Konrad cares about his home and his friends, which is what makes him a preferable ruler to the Queen, and a more likeable guy. That's the idea. It can be conveyed differently.
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by lujo86 »

Ok, so, after taking the feedback into account, here's a 2nd pass, which should be much better, even if there's likely plenty of room for improvement further. Lines for Scenario 1, and I'll put up a first draft of Blackwater shortly. Enjoy, and feel free to critique.
Spoiler:
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by lujo86 »

Right, and here's the first draft of Blackwater:

The goals were:

a) make it less contrived and more spontaneous
b) make Kaylan more likeable
c) give the player some tips about how to handle the scenario
d) make it more immersive, with people involved more aware of the world around them
e) clean up extra clunky lines
Spoiler:
----

I tried getting straight to Alduin, but the lines there are messed up beyond belief because Delfador starts talking about needing experienced troops for Elesenfar, but it doesn't seem like Elesenfar was mentioned anywhere previously, so the player reading those lines would have no idea about its significance. Or that there's a destination beyone Alduin. Unless that info is in the intro somewhere, but I don't think it is.

Generally the whole situation with Alduin is messed up and completely contrived, and would need a few lines added just to get some space to fit some actual story into it (or rather tie it to the story so far and the story ahead). Either that or I'm not properly seeing when the dialogues trigger, but even so, it's a mess.
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by egallager »

lujo86 wrote: February 6th, 2023, 10:38 am I tried getting straight to Alduin, but the lines there are messed up beyond belief because Delfador starts talking about needing experienced troops for Elesenfar, but it doesn't seem like Elesenfar was mentioned anywhere previously, so the player reading those lines would have no idea about its significance. Or that there's a destination beyone Alduin. Unless that info is in the intro somewhere, but I don't think it is.
Oh yeah that was actually a recent change in 9f780903abfa592752cb02c767a4ef5992f6f9c7, which came out of PR#7214; you should probably talk to octalot about it
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Re: Volunteering to spruce up the dialogue in one particular campaign

Post by Helmet »

lujo86 wrote: February 6th, 2023, 9:06 am Enjoy, and feel free to critique.
Okay, here's my critique. I compare sentence to sentence. The mainline dialogue is blue and the revised dialogue red.

Mainline:
Twenty years into her rule, Asheviere turned her attention to the wood elves living in the great forest southwest of Wesnoth, whom she despised. Orcish mercenaries were hired and dispatched to bring about their ruin.


Revised version:
Twenty years into her rule, Asheviere turned her attention to the wood elves of Aethenwood, long a thorn in her side. The great forest woke to the howling of wolves, the bellows of trolls and the cries of orcs, brought down from the North with promises of plunder, slaves and land. "The Queen!" they screamed through the smoke and the carnage, "The Queen wills it! Give us the boy!"


I like the mainline version more, because "...whom she despised" is a more powerful sentiment than the much weaker "a thorn in her side."

I prefer this mainline sentence: "Orcish mercenaries were hired and dispatched to bring about their ruin." I did not like the revised, "The great forest woke to the howling of wolves, the bellows of trolls and the cries of orcs, brought down from the North with promises of plunder, slaves and land." In my opinion, the simple, direct language of the mainline original gets the job done. If I were reading a novel, sure, I might prefer the sentence in the revised version, but for a Wesnoth campaign? No. Florid writing seems out-of-place.

Furthermore, the revised version makes less sense than the original. Why would mercenaries scream "The Queen"? They are mercenaries; they work for money, not out of loyalty to the ruling class. Perhaps even worse, "they" (the mercenaries) evidently scream in unison, "The Queen wills it! Give us the boy!" Am I supposed to believe they have adopted this mouthful of blatant exposition as a battle cry? No way.

Mainline:
"Master Delfador! Look, there are orcs coming from all directions! What shall we do?"


Revised version:
"Master Delfador! An army of orcs is upon us! The queen sent a whole army of orcs!"


Again, I like the mainline version more. "...there are orcs coming from all directions" conveys that Konrad is panicking.

"An army of orcs is upon us! The queen sent a whole army of orcs!" Nah. Konrad said a thing, and then he said it a second time in a different way. Either the first or the second sentence would've been fine, but not both.

Mainline:
Delfador says,
"There are too many to fight, far too many. We must escape!"


Revised version:
Delfador says,
"I'm afraid that this is only the vanguard, my dear boy. When the main force arrives, they will be far too many for us to fight. We must make our escape while there is still time!"


I prefer the mainline version. It's simple and to the point, exactly the kind of thing a person might quickly say when their doom is fast approaching.

The first two sentences of the revised version indicate that Delfador is calm; after all, he has time to be didactic in his response, and he calls Konrad a "dear boy." Delfador's revised dialogue also makes me wonder how he knows that the approaching orcs are only the vanguard. If Delfador had prior knowledge of the approaching army, why didn't he say something earlier? This is a flaw, as it confuses the reader.

I'll stop here. My responses to the remaining examples of revised dialogue is similar. Generally, I like the new sentences, but for a battle game, in my opinion, the revised dialogue is excessively intricate, creates confusion where there had been none, and stuffs-in too much additional exposition, often in a heavy-handed manner.
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