Chronology in the Official Campaigns and in the UMC.

Gwain · Post by **Gwain** » February 21st, 2006, 6:00 pm

Just a little input, nothing really essential tho.

What about incorporating in the new GUI the aproximate time of when the events described in a campaign happened?

It would allow people to play the campaigns following the timeline, and letting them to feel more in "touch" with what's going on through the campaigns.

Cheers, Gwain

JW · Post by JW » February 21st, 2006, 8:30 pm

I actually really like this idea. This would be appropriate for the official campaigns, but for the user-made campaigns it may be more (even far more) difficult. I do like it though.

Ranger M · Post by **Ranger M** » February 21st, 2006, 8:39 pm

I don't see how this would be a problem, just include a date at the beginnig of the campaign, and whenever the date changes. So for example:

Heir to the throne (story bit starts) wrote:in 506 AW* king....

(skip to just before defeldor and konrad are first attacked)

547 AW, Konrad and defeldor are attacked in

and then at a later point in the campaign after a year has supposedly passed.

Heir to the throne wrote:548 AW, Konrad...

ps: date and date reference not checked, but basically "x" years after wesnoth was founded

pps: story text not checked either.

Gwain · Post by **Gwain** » February 21st, 2006, 8:49 pm

no need to put references inside the campaign, imho.

it's just enough if you can determine the approximate starting/ending time of a campaign when you start it.

trow = from 5BW to 20YW
the scepter of fire (UMC)= from 25YW to 40YW
httt = from 517YW to 518 YW

and so on

player · Post by **player** » February 21st, 2006, 8:55 pm

do you mean like in civilizations III?
if you do i really do like your idea. making it more "reviewable" and probably understandable.

Post by **zookeeper** » February 21st, 2006, 9:04 pm

I think it's enough to make the player have a general idea of the era in which the campaign takes place, and of course include a "starting year" and "ending year" in prologue and epiloque. The former (and the latter as well, I guess) can easily be done by referencing very well known events, such as "10 years after the reign of Asheviere ended" or "a few years before the foundation of Wesnoth by Haldric I". Making the player feel some connection to other events he already knows about is in this case good and not at all hard to do.

Gwain · Post by **Gwain** » February 21st, 2006, 9:34 pm

I Was thinking something about that, even tho having the year well shown on the campaign description would be enough IMHO.

It's just a standard that campaign developers should adopt, in that case (the second one). No need for coding and so on.

edit: I bet i'm not the best guy on image editing

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » February 21st, 2006, 10:04 pm

Campaign Developers are free to use dates inside their campaign or in the description. However the flow of Wesnothian history is not a big aspect in most of the campaigns. Nor is that history free from inconsistencies. It has little or no importance in choosing a campaign, and so won't be included as a field on the campaign server.

However if you are interested in Wesnothian history there is work that could be done clarifying and compiling Wesnoth's History on our Wiki. It could help other campaign designers fit their campaigns more tightly in the web of history

Gwain · Post by **Gwain** » February 21st, 2006, 10:20 pm

i'm not saying that campaigns must be accurate and historically coherent, i was just stating that it would be a nice standard for campaign developers to specifically state when their campaigns take place.

Actually it really needs no coding (If the campaign developers try to follow the Wesnoth timeline and put a reminder description on their campaign)

However the flow of Wesnothian history is not a big aspect in most of the campaigns.

but nonentheless you can get big spoilers from a campaign if you play them in 'wrong' order