My Wesnoth Experiences: Part 2

The second part of my interview with BFWEnthographer.

Hi artisticdude!

thank you for your clear and detailed answer! Very interesting to read.
I quote something interesting you said which I would like to base my next question upon.

artisticdude wrote: “Perhaps my biggest gripe is that the engine isn’t as RPG-friendly as I’d like, but since Wesnoth is a TBS game that was never intended to support hard-core RPG gameplay, that gripe is rather ridiculous.”

Also other people mentioned me their wish for a more RPG-friendly game and the limits of the Wesnoth engine.

I play and know RPG myself, but I cannot grasp how the RPG engine limits the potential of creating RPG-based content…for instance in the add-on server thera are some campaigns ‘claiming’ to be RPG-like, so it seems that doing RPG content is somehow possible.

Question 3 – RPG game design.
Can you elaborate on how Wesnoth engine limits RPG-based content? Starting by reflecting on your Undead in the Sewers! what does the wesnoth engine allow you to do and what not? Are these limits ‘objective ones’ (i.e. it is impossible to code/implement those aspects through WML) or are they ‘subjective ones’ (i.e. it would be possible to code these aspects, but it requires a lot of effort/skills/time)?

Hmm. Interesting question. I’m probably not the best person to comment on this, since I’m primarily an artist and not a coder, but here’s my viewpoint on the subject, based on my understandings of Wesnoth policy, structure, and the experience I’ve gained designing ‘Undead in the Sewers!’

It is indeed possible to implement certain RPG features and structures, such as inventories and shops, using only the pre-defined WML functions that are included in the main game. However, these features rely heavily on the in-game dialogue window system, can become very clunky, and are often difficult and very time-consuming to create.

Basically, the flaws in Wesnoth RPG game design all boils down to one thing: the limitations of WML when it comes to creating RPG campaigns, which stem from the fact that Wesnoth was never intended to be an RPG game. It is possible expand the features of WML using the Lua scripting language, but Lua is much more difficult to learn than WML (which, as you know, is a markup language rather than a scripting language). I’ve never been able to learn Lua (despite several tries), so I am unable to say exactly how much it would be possible to make WML more RPG-friendly using Lua. However, I have managed to implement a Lua function that stores shroud data in between levels (it was written by melinath, who’s something of a Lua guru on the forums) into ‘Undead in the Sewers!’. This is an excellent example of how WML can be made much more RPG-friendly through Lua, but again, I am not entirely sure how far it would be possible to use Lua to make WML more RPG-friendly.

Another thing that I’d like to note, even though it doesn’t necessarily concern the code aspects of the issue, is that Wesnoth art isn’t really suitable for an RPG game. There are far too many variations in scale and perspective among the different tiers of Wesnoth art (terrain art, unit art, scenery, etc.) to tie together into a coherent portrayal of a setting for an RPG. These variations work fine in a TBS setting, and are probably even better than having all art exist on the same scale and perspective. However, like I said, these variations are far less aesthetically viable for an RPG then they are for a TBS game.

I would hesitate to name these limits ‘objective’, since it would be possible to turn the entire Wesnoth into an RPG-specific engine, but it would require many, many man-hours of work, an excellent knowledge and understanding of C++ (the language the Wesnoth engine is written in), and you would pretty much have to re-write the entire engine from the ground up. When you consider the amount of effort such an undertaking would require, it would almost undoubtably be much easier to simply write your own RPG engine from scratch. So, while I consider the RPG limits of Wesnoth to be ‘subjective’ ones, they might almost be considered ‘objective’, when one considers how many basic aspects of Wesnoth it would be necessary to change/remove in order to turn the current TBS engine into an RPG engine.

In conclusion, it is really impossible to write a Wesnoth RPG game that has all the features you see in actual RPG engines -and implements these features seamlessly and well- without fundamentally changing the nature of the Wesnoth engine (and at least some of the art assets). Wesnoth has always had some RPG elements to one extent or another, but these elements are primarily ones that mesh seamlessly and unobtrusively with the turn-based strategy gameplay that is the essence of Wesnoth.

My Wesnoth Experiences: Part 1

A while back I was contacted by a Wesnoth user known as BfWEnthographer, who told he he was conducting “research on users participation in Battle for Wesnoth”. He asked me if I’d be willing to help him out by answering a few questions, to which I responded in the affirmative. I thought it might be of interest to whoever reads this blog (if anyone does?) to see the questions he asked and my relies. I will release these interviews in several blog posts, since there are far too many to cram just into one post. In this post I will respond to the first two questions he asked me.

QUESTION1 – Playing
After a very brief introduction about yourself and your background (profession, age, country…whatever you like)
an you tell me a little bit about your relationship with the game (as a player)? (For instance: How and when did you first start playing Wesnoth? What do you like the most/least? Have you always played regularly? …)

I’m a home-schooled high-school student from the eastern USA. I’m interested in graphic design and technology, love turn-based strategy games and role-playing games, and I am something of an Apple fanboy. I got my first computer (an HP Slimline Pavilion running Windows Vista) back in 2007, and instantly became interested in the world of computing. Computer games were a natural interest for me, and with that interest developed an interest in computer graphics. In 2008 my HP died, and I switched over to the Macintosh computers and OS. Since the majority of the games I’d played on Windows did not work on Mac OS X, I started looking for new, Mac-compatible games to replace the ones I could no longer play. At some point in my search, I discovered Wesnoth 0.8 on an out-dated gaming site that I no longer remember the name of. Since I have a satellite internet connection (as well as the data cap and slow download times that come with that kind of connection), I was instantly drawn to the small download size of the game, and (of course!) the fact that it was free. I downloaded it, and was instantly sucked into simple mechanics and gameplay that led to a wealth of strategies and replay value.

I played 0.8 for over five months before thinking that perhaps there might be an update available that would make the game even better, and I began to investigate the game online. Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that not only was an official website for the game, but that there was also a large and stable community behind the game, and that the current stable version was 1.6! I quickly realized that I’d been playing an obsolete version of the game for nearly six months, and wasted no time in downloading 1.6 and enjoying all the vast improvements that had taken place since 0.8. I waited for some time before actually joining the community, but it was inevitable that I would join it eventually, and I did so in late December 2009.

Today I am still in awe of not only how Wesnoth manages to produce such fun and at times complex gameplay and strategies using very simple mechanics and rules, but also how moddable Wesnoth is and how sophisticated the engine has become. To be honest, I really find it hard to say anything negative about Wesnoth, simply because there is very little negative about the game, in my experience. Perhaps my biggest gripe is that the engine isn’t as RPG-friendly as I’d like, but since Wesnoth is a TBS game that was never intended to support hard-core RPG gameplay, that gripe is rather ridiculous.

I’ve played Wesnoth pretty regularly up until about October 2010, when my academic workload began to increase significantly. I’ve always played mainly single-player campaigns rather than multiplayer games, since my unstable internet connection doesn’t allow for enjoyable multiplayer matches. These days I still find time to actually play Wesnoth from time to time, but right now most of my Wesnoth time goes into creating art or mods for the game. I’m not so active on the Wesnoth forums anymore due to (of course) lots of schoolwork and my shaky internet connection, but I hang out with the Wesnoth community on Twitter fairly frequently, and I read the forums (usually as a guest) whenever I get the chance.

QUESTION2 – Contributing/Participating
Why did you start contributing (what did motivate you)?
How did you start (own project, collaborating with others, providing feedback, testing…)?
In what activities are you currently involved (only art contributions or more)?

I joined the community for the sole purpose of being able to contribute in some way to the game. I almost instantly decided I wanted to learn how to create unit graphics, and I began to learn how to create pixel-art. It was an uphill battle, but I’ve been at it pretty consistently since December 2009, and I’m proud to be able to say that, with the help of such notable Wesnoth artists as thespaceinvader and Zerovirus, I’ve become fairly decent at creating Wesnoth unit sprites.

My motivation for contributing originally came from a desire to be able to create my own art for my Wesnoth mods, but eventually my principal motivation became the blue name of an art contributor. I wasn’t interested in the blue name simply because of the respect it afforded from the community, however; it was more about a personal goal for me, to see whether or not I could develop my skills enough to become an art contributor.

To date, I have never contributed a single baseframe to the mainline game; all my contributions to date have been in the form of animations. This is rather ludicrous now that I look back on it, because creating animations is usually considered much harder than creating baseframes. In fact, it was through my struggle to learn how to create baseframes that I learned how to animate, and now it is my opinion that my animating skills are far above my baseframe-creating abilities.

I’ve been involved in quite a number of Wesnoth projects in one way or another, either as a player giving feedback, an artist contributing unit graphics, a code contributor, or a developer. Right now I’m developing a single-player campaign called ‘Undead in the Sewers!’, which experiments with the role-playing possibilities of the Wesnoth engine. It’s pretty much a sole-developer effort, as I have never been good at meshing my ideas with someone else’s, although I have enjoyed a fair amount of player feedback that has vastly helped me to improve the campaign.

Why I am Against ‘Planned Parenthood’

“The great irony is that abortion has done what the Klan only dreamed of…
Roughly one quarter of the black population is now missing.”

Dr. Alveda King, Niece of Martin Luther King Jr.

Why I am Entirely and Utterly Against “Planned Parenthood”

Planned Parenthood. The industry that cares about you and your family. The industry that provides millions of Americans with access to low-cost ‘health care’. The industry that really should receive even more money than the 360 million dollars in taxpayer subsidies it already receives to bolster its annual one billion dollar (and counting) budget, in order to help it continue to perform its ‘good works’.

Bullcrap.

Let’s take another look at Planned Parenthood. A good, hard look, one that pierces through the front of lies, misconceptions, and hidden agendas that PP has worn since its founding.

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood):

“Planned Parenthood affiliate clinics account for approximately 27% of U.S. abortions versus 73 percent at other, non-affiliated medical facilities.”

This means that 1 out of every 4 aborted babies are murdered by Planned Parenthood. I don’t have to tell you the view we Catholics take towards abortion. It is murdering a human being, as surely as if you had shot your next-door neighbor in the head with a gun. Only God has the right to take an innocent life.

“According to its 2008-2009 annual report and fact sheet, contraception constituted 35% of [Planned Parenthood's] total services”

This means that the providing contraception constitutes the single largest percentage of the ‘services’ PP provides. Catholics consider contraception in the same category as abortion: it’s pure and unadulterated evil. If you do not want a child, you have no business getting married, as the entire reason behind matrimony is to have children. And if you have sexual relations out of wedlock, not only are you irresponsible and thoughtless, but you are committing a grave moral evil.

From National Review Online (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/265590/five-truths-about-planned-parenthood-charmaine-yoest):

Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, a long-time opponent of Planned Parenthood, reveals 5 little-known truths about Planned Parenthood in this article on National Review Online. If anyone is an expert on Planned Parenthood’s hidden agendas and extreme corruption, it is Yeost. I quote the entirety of Yoest’s article within the context of this post, but you can use the link above to read the article on National Review Online.

Point 1:

“Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider, performing (and profiting from) one out of every four abortions in the United States.”

At first, this might seem redundant to my first point above. But, as Yoest points out in the article, in reference to the above point:

“In 2009, abortion was a “service” that Planned Parenthood provided to 12 percent of its patients overall, and to 97.6 percent of its patients who reported themselves pregnant. It performed 332,278 abortions in that one year alone. That is an average of 910 abortions each and every day.

Since the average cost of an early surgical abortion was $451 (according to the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s former “special affiliate”), abortion accounted for approximately 37 percent of Planned Parenthood’s health-care-center income in 2009. And that figure — nearly $150 million in revenue from abortion — is a low estimate, considering that Planned Parenthood also performs later and more expensive abortions.

In terms of time, money, and unduplicated patients — rather than the bloated “services” rhetoric — abortion contributes significantly more than the 3 percent Ms. Coleman implies to Planned Parenthood’s bottom line.”

Well, well, well, not only does PP murder helpless unborn infants, it profits significantly from so doing! Isn’t that surprising? Furthermore, as Yoest so rightly observes, the estimate that PP receives $150 million in revenue from abortion is a conservative one! Does something smell funny, anyone? Add this to the fact that:

Point 2:

“Planned Parenthood increases its abortion numbers with each passing year, bucking the nearly 20-year national trend of a decreasing abortion rate.”

So, not only does PP want to increase the astronomical number of murders they commit daily, despite the trend of decreasing numbers of abortions in the US, they want to make even more money right along with it! More abortions equals more money, and more money equals more abortions. The two go hand-in-hand. Yoest continues:

“Today, Planned Parenthood performs nearly double the number of abortions it did in 1999. And over the last twelve years — during which the amount of taxpayer funding Planned Parenthood receives has, coincidentally, also doubled — it has dramatically reduced the other pregnancy-related services it provides. In 2009, Planned Parenthood made referrals for only 997 adoptions, in contrast to the 2,999 referrals it made in 1999. Similarly, Planned Parenthood’s clients for prenatal care dropped from 18,878 to only 7,021.

Abby Johnson, the former director of Planned Parenthood’s clinic in Bryan, Texas, reports that, in 2009, her clinic was given an increased abortion quota in order to raise revenue. (According to Mrs. Johnson, “the assigned budget always included a line for client goals under abortion services.”) Mrs. Johnson has said that her superiors gave her “the clear and distinct understanding that I was to get my priorities straight, that abortion was where my priorities needed to be because that’s where the revenue was.”

The latest annual report for the affiliate Ms. Coleman headed before she assumed her current post, Planned Parenthood of Mid-Hudson Valley (PPMHV), seems to corroborate Mrs. Johnson’s claim that Planned Parenthood is increasing abortion services with an eye toward increased revenue. PPMHV is relocating its consolidated clinics to open larger and more “modern” facilities, which, notably, have “the addition of surgical abortion services.” The PPMHV report “anticipates” that these new centers will lead to “increasing our revenue and sustainability.”

Planned Parenthood’s new use of Skype to dispense abortion-inducing drugs and its mandate that all affiliates provide abortion services by 2013 also indicate that the organization wants its abortion-increasing trend to continue.”

Why, surprise, surprise, PP is becoming more and more about abortion, and less and less about providing other pregnancy-related health services. It couldn’t be about the money? Could it? Maybe PP just takes sadistic pleasure in murdering thousands of defenseless unborn infants every year? Or maybe this is being brought about through some combination of greed and whatever sadistic pleasure PP finds in mass murder on a prodigious scale.

Point 3:

“Planned Parenthood affiliates have failed to be good stewards of taxpayer funds.”

My word, this is really a shocker. Not.

“In some cases where Planned Parenthood has not been legally allowed a “financial cushion” through a government health-care program, it has felt entitled to build one for itself. For example, a California audit report showed that in one year alone Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties received $5 million more than it should have because of improper billing practices.

And contrary to Ms. Coleman’s claim, Planned Parenthood does have sources of money other than the government dole. In fact, for its fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and its affiliates reported receiving $308.2 million in “Private Contributions and Bequests.” It also made $404.9 million in “Health Center Income.” Though individual affiliates have recorded losses, Planned Parenthood overall reported an “excess of revenue over expenses” of $63.4 million in 2009.”

If this isn’t proof of an immoral and corrupt organization that cares for monetary profit over all else, I don’t know what is.

Point 4:

“Planned Parenthood fights reasonable laws to protect women and girls because such laws might undermine its ability to make money.”

“Planned Parenthood’s consistent and financially motivated opposition to federal and state legislation designed to protect women and girls makes clear that its abortion business trumps its professed concern for these women and girls. Just this spring, a Planned Parenthood affiliate in Illinois fought a bill to make reporting of sex abuse mandatory, because Planned Parenthood allegedly feared that the legislation might overload the responsible agency with too many cases of suspected abuse.

Planned Parenthood’s longstanding efforts across the nation to overturn common-sense laws that safeguard women’s health and safety further underscore the organization’s pattern and practice of refusing to make caring for women a priority. Just a few years ago, Planned Parenthood challenged a Missouri law that required abortion clinics to meet the same standards as the ambulatory-surgery centers in the state. Its reason? Bringing its clinics into compliance with these medically accepted standards would be prohibitively costly.”

Yoest concludes the article:

Point 5:

“Planned Parenthood partners with those who sexually abuse and exploit women and girls.”

“Substantial evidence suggests that Planned Parenthood — far from being a defender of women and girls — defends and abets those who sexually abuse and exploit them. Planned Parenthood has shown itself to be a perfect partner to the pimp, sex trafficker, or child abuser. It hides his crimes through its willful failure to report suspected sexual abuse of children to authorities and its refusal to comply with parental-involvement laws. For example, Planned Parenthood of Central and Northern Arizona was found negligent and civilly liable for failing to report the sexual abuse of a young girl who was being raped by her foster brother, and Planned Parenthood Minnesota/North Dakota/South Dakota was fined $50,000 for ignoring Minnesota’s parental-notice law. Planned Parenthood’s failure to intervene in cases of abuse reflects a lack of concern for the women and girls who go to Planned Parenthood seeking trustworthy care and counsel.

One of Ms. Coleman’s five “myths” is the assertion that “People do not really need Planned Parenthood.” The truth is this: People do not need Planned Parenthood to stay in the abortion business (nor to annually increase its stake in it). People do not need Planned Parenthood to protect adult men who prey on and abuse young girls. People do not need Planned Parenthood’s anti-woman, bottom-line-oriented view that pushes abortion at the expense of women’s health and safety. Above all, people do not need Planned Parenthood’s scandal-ridden and abortion-heavy business practices to be subsidized by taxpayer dollars.”

In the interest of money, then, PP is willing not only to destroy the lives of thousands of unborn infants every year, but also to encourage rapists and the like by protecting them from the law! It is sickening, although not very surprising given the founding principals and flagrant immorality of the organization, that PP stoops to such foul methods of obtaining monetary profit. As Yoest says: “People do not need Planned Parenthood’s anti-woman, bottom-line-oriented view that pushes abortion at the expense of women’s health and safety.”

Now, let me be clear: I am not “against cheap mammograms, blood tests, and other pre-natal care”, nor am I “pro-AIDS” or “pro-cancer”. But when these inexpensive ‘services’ are rendered by an organization that provides 27% (and rising) of abortions in the US, an organization whose primary ‘service’ (35% of all ‘services’ provided) is contraception; an organization that is more concerned about profit (and therefore, abortion) than the care it provides; an organization that promotes the abuse of women instead of protecting them; it comes down to weighing the positives against the negatives. Simply put: does PP save more lives than it destroys? Help more families than it tears apart? Give more than it takes? No, no, no, a thousand times NO! Add together all the possible cases where PP has saved a life. Perhaps, for example, they might have caught many people’s cancer before it reached a critical stage. Then consider that PP murders on average 910 innocent lives daily and wants nothing more than to increase that statistic, that PP is more concerned about money than its patients or the ‘services’ it provides, and that it will do anything to increase its revenue, such as encouraging the abuse of women by hiding crimes of sexual abuse! There is no conflict here; the harm that comes from the existence of the abomination that is ‘Planned Parenthood’ astronomically outweighs any good that that organization does. Even in the hypothetical situation that PP destroyed only one life annually, or that it only provided contraceptives and no abortions, that would in no way justify the organization’s continued existence, and would still present far more than sufficient reason for the downfall of the entire operation.

This is why I am entirely and utterly against Planned Parenthood. It is an evil, immoral atrocity, and merits only my hatred, disgust, and complete opposition. As long as I live, I will never cease to advocate this organization’s downfall, as its continued existence is an offense against morality, human rights, and human life itself.

A Friend Leaves the Forums

Yesterday I got a PM on the Wesnoth forums from King_Elendil, saying that he was leaving the forums and the entire internet. He’s been one of my better friends on the forums, and I’m sorry to see him go. I’ve been on the forums for just over a year now, and I’ve already had two friends leave the forums entirely: first melinath, and now King_Elendil. Sigh. That’s the way with forums; you have people come in for a while, and then suddenly they’re gone. But I wish King_Elendil well, wherever he may be.

On a happier note, I’m making progress on an RPG tileset. It doesn’t fit the Wesnoth proportions, despite my original intention to have it do so. It just kind of… morphed… into a different scale as I worked on it. I’m fairly happy with how it’s turning out, and so far there are no snags. If all goes well, I’ll upload the tileset to opengameart.org whenever I finish, where hopefully someone will use it in their game project.

Merfolks Sux

Merfolk are really hard to animate. Not that I’m not up to the challenge, but I feel like my animations really aren’t cutting it enough to qualify as mainline-level animations. Not that I feel they wouldn’t be accepted into mainline, but I personally am unhappy with them (with the art, that is, not the animation from a technical viewpoint), and I feel like this is a result of my lacking pixeling skill.

So, to solve this problem, I’ve recently been trying to figure out how to up my pixeling skills. That is, I’ve been trying to decide how to practice the skills I already possess and better them while learning new skills in the process.

I want to take a break from the Wesnoth graphic style, which is pretty much the only style I’ve ever experimented with. I want to create some game graphics (not that they’ll ever be made into a game, if I ever finish them), since they’d be a heck of a lot more fun and useful than just random doodles that serve no purpose. I mean, I’m not against doing art for fun (I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t get some sort of enjoyment out of it), but I also like to do art for a specific purpose. So okay, I want to create some game graphics. But what kind of game do I want to aim for, and what style of graphics should I use?

There are many kinds of games out there. Obviously, my choice to work in 2D prohibits me from entering certain genres like FPS’s, but there are still a world of options left. Platformers, RPG’s, match-three, puzzle, action, time management, tower defense, etc. etc. I’d like to create a truly new and innovative gameplay experience for this fictional game though, so I’m hesitant to just go ahead and say “Oh, let’s create another Mario clone”, or “Yeah, let’s create another one of those top-down RPG things, who cares that it’s already been done a bajillion times before this.”

I’ll probably avoid the platformer genre for now, since I would naturally get discouraged by Frogatto’s high level graphics. Not that I want it to be a competition or anything (not that it could be even if I wanted it to be), but I feel like Frogatto’s kind of already taken over the platformer genre as far as pixel art graphics are concerned. Maybe this is all nonsense and I’m being stupid, but I still feel like creating platformer graphics would be the last choice I’d make.

I’m seriously tempted to give some isometric RPG graphics a go. NOT anime RPG graphics though, since in general I strongly dislike the anime style and would want my graphics to be less stylistically different from what you would see in real life.

Hmm, I know! I could create some isometric RPG graphics to match the Wesnoth sprite scale! It’d be an excellent transition from the Wesnoth style into other styles, since it’s still close to my Wesnoth comfort zone while also entering the border of a new realm of graphic style.

So if I’m not churning out Wesnoth graphics in the next couple weeks/months, it isn’t because I’m being lazy. It’s because I want to up my pixeling skills so I can come back and conquer those merfolk animations once and for all.

Quick, Take Down The Christmas Lights Before Someone Sees Them!

I will never understand the aversion to Christmas that is becoming so prominent in American society today. No matter what your religion is, Christmas is officially recognized as a federal holiday. So when I hear stories like the airport that had to take down their Christmas decorations or be sued, or any one of these other outrages, it really makes me mad. Other religions have the right to put up decorations for their holidays, why should Christians be denied that right? Or, if you don’t want to get into the religious aspects of the whole mess, why shouldn’t we be allowed to put up decorations for a federal holiday?

It’s not that I don’t understand religious tolerance and all that. I do. I have no problem with other religions celebrating their holidays, and I don’t think those of us who celebrate Christmas should encroach on their rights to celebrate their holidays. But this works both ways. This nonsense is taking tolerance too far, to the point of submissiveness. And I think it’s time those of us who value Christmas stood up for the rights of our holiday, rather than allowing ourselves to be bullied into being ashamed of Christmas by overdoses of religious tolerance.

I am very much a believer in the religious aspects of Christmas. But even were Christmas not a religious holiday and merely a federal one, it would still deserve respect, even from those who don’t participate in/agree with it. It is worth noting that no other religion’s December holiday is a federal holiday, and therefore public institutions and services (like airports) should not be obliged to put up decorations for anything other than Christmas.

But who knows? Maybe fifty years from now Christmas will no longer even be able to claim the status of a federal holiday, as that status will have been revoked so as to further religious tolerance. Given the rate this entire mess is deteriorating, this isn’t as implausible as it might sound. All the same, I hope and pray that it never happens, and that Christmas will one day receive the respect it deserves, both as a religious holiday and a federal one.