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Hogne Håskjold | 5 Sep 2006 09:31
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World of Wesnoth - the setting

Hi

I have been following some attempts at fleshing out the setting of 
Wesnoth on the forum and have observed that every one of them has failed 
miserably. Flamewars and undermining of any attempt that doesn't fit 
peoples own ideas of how it should be has been widespread.

I find the setting of Wesnoth to be hugely neglected and atm rather 
bland and boring. Also people working on campaigns don't have a decent 
baseline to work from. However I think it has the potential to be much 
more. So I propose the following:

Put together a dev team much like the MP team which will have ~full 
control over the setting. They will be allowed to detail the setting and 
make it coherent, but they have to adhere to mainline (races, official 
campaings etc).

Since we might not get many volunteers we should try to be modest in the 
initial goals. We could start with small things like deciding where the 
heck the various races live and originate from. This doesn't need to be 
much. An example:

"Saurians once had an empire (believed to be on island X), it fell. Now 
they are nomadic and live in swamps which other races shun" and decide 
on 2-3 main habitat areas. This would then become the official stance 
and could use the forum for further details, but with firmer control.

There are people more familiar with the setting than me, but I will help 
to try to get this thing rolling if the idea get any support.
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Isaac Clerencia | 5 Sep 2006 09:36
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Re: World of Wesnoth - the setting

On Tuesday 05 September 2006 09:31, Hogne Håskjold wrote:
> There are people more familiar with the setting than me, but I will help
> to try to get this thing rolling if the idea get any support.
I'm all for this.

It would be great if we can get two or three people interested and ready to 
work on this.
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Bruno Wolff III | 5 Sep 2006 17:30
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Re: World of Wesnoth - the setting

On Tue, Sep 05, 2006 at 09:36:22 +0200,
  Isaac Clerencia <isaac <at> warp.es> wrote:
> On Tuesday 05 September 2006 09:31, Hogne Håskjold wrote:
> > There are people more familiar with the setting than me, but I will help
> > to try to get this thing rolling if the idea get any support.
> I'm all for this.
> 
> It would be great if we can get two or three people interested and ready to 
> work on this.

And not a whole lot more until things are fleshed out a bit. This is an area
where too many cooks will spoil the broth. Once there is a base story than
other people can be brought in to flesh out parts of it (especially if they
also want to use that area of the background for a campaign).
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Nils Kneuper | 5 Sep 2006 17:40
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Re: World of Wesnoth - the setting

Isaac Clerencia <isaac <at> warp.es> wrote:
>> On Tuesday 05 September 2006 09:31, Hogne Håskjold wrote:
>>     
>>> There are people more familiar with the setting than me, but I will help
>>> to try to get this thing rolling if the idea get any support.
>>>       
>> I'm all for this.
>>
>> It would be great if we can get two or three people interested and ready to 
>> work on this.
>>     
Would be a nice thing. When reordering the ingame help we could take 
these short faction descriptions as sub topic for the "race". This wold 
allow us to show all units to the player and also have it nicely orderd.
The group of these two or three people should have the power to say that 
this "history" is the official one. If there are discussions somwhere 
these people are the ones saying what counts for the game. And it should 
in the end be accepted by all the other devs.
Greets,
Nils Kneuper aka Ivanovic
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David Philippi | 5 Sep 2006 18:13
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Re: World of Wesnoth - the setting

Am Dienstag 05 September 2006 17:40 schrieb Nils Kneuper:
> The group of these two or three people should have the power to say that
> this "history" is the official one. If there are discussions somwhere
> these people are the ones saying what counts for the game. And it should
> in the end be accepted by all the other devs.

I we want to do this like for the MP team, the best candidates would be the 
authors of campaigns with a good story then? Does anyone here know the 
current campaigns and can tell us who seems to have a nice feeling for a 
background story?

Bye David
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David White | 5 Sep 2006 23:42

Re: World of Wesnoth - the setting

Isaac Clerencia wrote:
> On Tuesday 05 September 2006 09:31, Hogne Håskjold wrote:
>   
>> There are people more familiar with the setting than me, but I will help
>> to try to get this thing rolling if the idea get any support.
>>     
> I'm all for this.
>
> It would be great if we can get two or three people interested and ready to 
> work on this.
>   
I whole-heartedly concur.

I do have one big concern though: I actually think there will be quite a 
few people who *want* to work on this, and have very strong opinions on 
how things should be. I think we would be best to choose one person who 
we want to place our confidence in, and let them lead a small 'task 
force' that shares their vision.

My personal recommendation would be Jetryl, if he wants to do this and 
has time.

David
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Joseph Simmons | 6 Sep 2006 03:04

Re: World of Wesnoth - the setting

This is a good idea. It definitely needs to get done. I think Jetryl
would be a good project leader, IF he was willing to do it - but he has
a lot on his plate already. I think scottk would be a good choice as
well. Other than that, honestly, I really can't think of anyone from the
forums who both posts regularly (=is interested) and has an opinion I
respect on this topic (=I would nominate them).

I'd also like to say that, in the (somewhat likely) case that anyone
nominates me, I am _not_ willing to participate in this project (for a
variety of reasons I won't go into here). Most people probably wouldn't
want me to anyway. ;)
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Soliton | 6 Sep 2006 03:40
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Re: World of Wesnoth - the setting

Relaying a message from Noy:

We've talked it over a bit over IRC about this issue and I'd like to                                                                                                      
be involved. Up to now I've said I'm sorta busy with my own writing,                                                                                                      
but I could squeeze in working the lead on this stuff, if nobody has                                                                                                      
an objection.  In any case I think having a strong MP contingent is                                                                                                       
essential, and I'd like to be closely associated. The way I see it is                                                                                                     
that we should aim for a five to seven page "document" of sorts that                                                                                                      
lists off the history, looking at different factions.                                                                                                                     

A few issues that we kicked around irregardless of who writes it:                                                                                                         

Scott has said he does not want to do it, but will help out where he                                                                                                      
can.

Noy
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Isaac Clerencia | 6 Sep 2006 08:19
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Re: World of Wesnoth - the setting

On Wednesday 06 September 2006 03:04, Joseph Simmons wrote:
> I'd also like to say that, in the (somewhat likely) case that anyone
> nominates me, I am _not_ willing to participate in this project (for a
> variety of reasons I won't go into here). Most people probably wouldn't
> want me to anyway. ;)

Well, in fact, you were named by several people as one of the more suitable 
person for this project, with the only problem of your xenophoby against 
drakes and saurians ...
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Hogne Håskjold | 6 Sep 2006 11:52
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Re: World of Wesnoth - the setting

David White wrote:
> I do have one big concern though: I actually think there will be quite a 
> few people who *want* to work on this, and have very strong opinions on 
> how things should be. I think we would be best to choose one person who 
> we want to place our confidence in, and let them lead a small 'task 
> force' that shares their vision.
> 

I'm starting to think that it might be best to chose a lead that doesn't 
have such strong opinions on the setting. This person could then try to 
mediate any possible conflicts and mainly be concerned with achieving 
progress.

Laying down some ground rules will also be important imo:
* Current mainline should be the baseline
* Place the settings importance in the hierarchy, what is more important 
  than what?
	- Gameplay/KISS
	- Code complexity
	- MP balance
	- Graphical improvements/concerns
	- Setting

Some main properties should be set:
* Low magic?
* Tolkien-like? what if anything will be different?
* Restricted by a specific mythology?

--

-- 
mvh                 (o_
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