Topic: WideLands and Rendering of Stories

There exist just few Campaigns for WideLands. Campaigns are basically like normal Games but perhaps several changed Things which can be essential Part or Embellishment for a Story. Wrapping Story for Game is the central Point for Campaign.

There are no People demanding more Campaigns. Therefore it seems like WideLands does not need to get its StoryRenderAbilties SRA advanced. Next I have to juggle with Words to don't kick actual small Number of Campaign-Authors when reflecting these Campaigns to point to the poor SRA of WL.

As encountered WL found Tuturial-like Campaigns and due to Approach to try first Campaign as Tutorial to learn the Basics wrapped into nice Story .... well - I won't state that a Developer have to be able to do all, but poor SRA did IMO met low XP&Co to render a good Story and IMO it is not fair when I would compare my second with his first factoring in my XP from Analysis about his resp why his did not met my Taste. So please drop personal Things here, I want to address the weak SRA and what could made better for Campaigns both based and reflected onto same Stuff I used for Analysis. To draw right Frame I have to be unbrief with Explanation, also perhaps due to it's not my best trained/experienced Skills and for sure I don't know its exisiting Terminology and therefore have to use more Words to hit the Nail by Random.

First of all note that if your only Tool is a Hammer you try to see in everything a Nail. Now look at WL's its RSA what is inside ToolBox. There is Kind of large StoryBoard but little Control about the Actors resp especially no good Interface. Scenery is Map with working Eco and Military. Regisseur can steer Cam to different Locations and defog Location by other Meanings (FoClearer-Thingy). Noted Libs to do simplify smoother Scrolling. Another Meaning is Text-Box which can contain Images, eg Portraits from Actors. I remind about Women in Campaign, may be named Karin, start telling Story and wondered where I will find here on GameMap.

Perhaps you know Western-Movies with Clint Eastwood. Dunno which one was his first but that Movies are "cool". Andekdote about is that: Hollywood-Freshy Eastwood got MainActor's Role and before Scene was made he went into his .. Room? Tent? and start reading his Dialogs afaik the Regisseur self wrote. Eastwood decided his Dialoges are much to much long and short them to well known Length.

When I was looking for Reasons why these Campaigns were that boring, I figured out that were poor Meanings to render the Story and most important was for real TextBoxes and Campaign-Author used it Way of Eastwood's Regisseur and no Actor decided to shorten them.

Almost all Meanings to render the Story is that StoryBox and Images. I don't know what it takes to draw a Portrait but for sure I know I would have serious Trouble to get that Quality from those ArtWork inside Campaigns which I doesn't match own Needs for Quality. However, without that Campaigns I could not step into Matter of Campaigns at this Level.

Assume there is a Story-Item like Karin hears any bad News and is nervous and/or concerned. That explained in TextBox means for Campaign-Pl..Reader to read another Paragraph of natural boring dead Text. Good literal Authors could do it perhaps much better but this or that Way it would stay static Text like reading Book parallel to Movie. Due to these Dialogs were long Campaign-Designer decided to interrupt Game-Flow for Story freezing Game till Player did master the Story-Part and at least me was always happy to continue Game and wondered that I felt from Story resp essential Part from Campaign disturbed instead entertained. Did analyse that much later due to treated SRA-Issues and reviewed Things. NOW assume you could control Units and created SpecialCharacter-Unit Karin as Kind of Worker working in Site Palace. You move Karin out to met any Messenger with that bad News. Instead writing Karin was very concerned and nervous about that you simply let move Unit Karin on the Map left to right quickly to express visually that Karin is anyway exeggerated due to Message.

First assume Karin could easily get Abiltities like those of Workers what means she could start Kind of Geologist-Search (that's the Name of random walk inside given Distance and then iterate PayLoad-Task like hammer the Ground etc .. all Features that Worker could use per CFG). Point is that if you made 3D-Model for Karin you can relative easily adapt other scripted Routines used to render other special Actions like that of the Lumberer to fall a Tree. That means with Karin-3D-Model you can easily take Animation-Code from Lumberer and produce Animation with lumbering Karin no Matter if you can well utlize that Animation to render the Story. Better seems to take all these Idle-Animation-Codes from the three Tribes which are IMO well suited to express several Things and let Actors lesser appear statical.

I am not sure what Engine already provides to control Units, afaics moving it and steer Direction it faces is either already possible or won't take a Lot Code to add BIF BuildIn-Function to face NE,SE,.. Object or Location.

Even WL is RT I would enjoy if GameFlow does not get interrupted what is no Problem as Freeze was adapted at higher Level afaics resp for sure you can resign to use it.

While TextBox with RichtTextForm RTF and Ability to draw Images I would like to see its Geometry parametrized and thus allow FullScreen-RTF-BOX resp Kind of UI-Style to use alt StoryBoard aside of GameMap and Players can leave StoryBoard eg by pressing TAB or any other HotKey to return to GameMap and do parallel to Story their Businesses that the Story does not anymore interrupt the Game resp Player don't have to skip resp rush through Dialogs to get quickly able to intervenate when Neighbour starts attacking his BorderSites.

I am not sure what is necessary as critical Mass to enable Campaign-Designer to render well a Story.

That alt StoryBoard above is Kind of generic primitive Meanings for SRA. More special are special StoryBoards like a Library and a Book and a artefactical Story-Map. Library is about finding any special Information among those many many Books and Book is about any special Book perhaps found or received and special Section inside gets readed to stress a special Hint or Riddle inside. The Map is same Kind like Book but for geographic Issues like telling perhaps hidden or unknown Location of any perhaps hidden Item, Site or Person.

Think of Movie of Indiana Jones. When he visited remote Locations with a Plane the Route was drawn at a Map. This can well support SRA for adventure-related Parts of Campaign, when Player moves between different Locations.

Due to XP I ask before reading that WideLands does not need Campaigns or adventure-like Story-Parts if you ever played Campaigns or Adventures and if you did or did not like them. I don't factor in Arguments like Settler-II did not have Campaigns or Adventures as well or you know no other Game which did it like that including 3D-Morphology for Map, complex Eco and moderate Military Part before. My XP is that perhaps all Kind of Games profite from Story and Comination with different other Game-Elements. It's like telling WideLands should not utilize Logic Elements as it is not like Chess but only Economy.

My Idea about existing Campaigns in WL is that these try to address Issues of Story and added some Specials making their GameStyle somewhat different to MainGame but Story was not integrated into Game but like explained tendentional boring and hacked the GameFlow instead guiding it. I can understand that one does not like this or that due to his personal Taste and/or XP but when I get Idea most People claim to don't like Stories, Adventures, Riddles and Hints, Quests and Campaigns, then this violates XP of Success of Industries like HollyWood, and large Shares of Players and sorry I can not believe that WideLands -Players are that special that they behave totally different in all that Aspect. Nevertheless I stress that I talk here abour SRA-Features from Game offered to Campaign-Designers and not about that what Players have to play no Matter if they like or don't like. New SRA-Feature, new/improved Campaigns won't change Availability of exisiting Maps and plain Game-BaseStyle will either not get touched from --- or these Features resp Products utilizing them will be so successfull that just Minority does not like it. Please factor in that it's possible to implement really complex Features for SRA-Issues but I did here not talk about large complex Issues but mainly Things which don't require a Lot Work but can be done cheaply utlizing existing InfraStructure of Game.

Adding PalaceSite and SpecialCharacterUnit Karin as Worker does not require Changes for PlatForm. Facing Directions is quasi Part of Moving when moving into that Direction and all that other Stuff is also no RocketScience but plain Things offering plain basic Features to the Game. Eg I wonder sometimes, when Hunter leave his Shaft, wander cross Map straightly to only Prey on Screen without Need to looking for. Sure it looks odds, sure we could resign for facing, searching and Animations generally. Adding Parameters for Geometry of RTF-Box is also not a large Task. I talk here perhaps about Features with large Impact especially for Campaign-Matters but rather small for Code.

I prefer if Thread follows its Topic and that's centric to SRA Rendering Stories for Campaigns and at first see Questions above. Did you play Campaigns: in WideLands - in other Games - did you like them and why resp why not?

Ivan the Terrible is dead .. Genghis Khan is dead .. and I do not feel well, too.

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