Narrative Campaign General Discussion?

[Lion.Kanzen]

Do you by any chance have any plans for narrative campaigns?

I'm wondering if in some secret corner of wildfire games there is an idea to follow with the narrated campaigns.

[Stan`]

Well the best thing we have right now is @SciGuy42's campaigns.

[Lion.Kanzen]

10 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Well the best thing we have right now is @SciGuy42's campaigns.

Just that? There is no concept, no diagram hidden in the team development forum ?

Are you sure?

@wowgetoffyourcellphone

You know something? You are very old here.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I say this because I have a conceptual proposal.

I want to draw an outline of what the campaigns would be like, not the scenarios.

I mean there will be an advanced learning tutorial campaign.

Then this will be unlock 3 faction's campaign then this other 3...

It would be like Starcraft campaigns.

You will start with the Greek colonization campaign Being the same campaign with a proto Ptolemy faction.

The one about found colonies.

The Greeks will come from across the sea to Egypt to help the Egyptians.

The campaign, you will help the Egyptians against the Persians.

It will be the story of Neukratis And the relations between Egypt and the Greeks.

This unique campaign will unlock the Persian campaign and will unlock the Greek city campaigns.

Persia

Athens

Sparta

these campaigns will unlock  the Macedonian campaign.

Macedonian

Then the Maurya campaign is unlocked.

And unlock the first Carthaginian campaign.

And Diadochi campaigns.

Then this will unlock the Roman and Iberian  campaign.

And so on. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

15 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

I like seeing it like this, in graphical form which creates immersion, rather than just a list of scenarios as in more modern games. The reason it's no longer done like this is less about and aesthetics than about the fact that it takes time, energy, etc. ($$) away from development elsewhere. Since we don't have a budget per se, the money consideration is taken away and all we need is someone to come along and want to create the assets to make this work, then have a programmer who wants to slap it together. Once the framework is in place, then creating the 2D assets for the maps and icons to click for the next scenario is pretty simple. 

 

Creating the campaign(s) and scenarios themselves doesn't have to wait for some great UI like in those images in order to commence design and construction. The game already has the "simple list" UI for basic campaigns. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

I say this because I have a conceptual proposal.

I want to draw an outline of what the campaigns would be like, not the scenarios.

I mean there will be an advanced learning tutorial campaign.

Then this will be unlock 3 faction's campaign then this other 3...

It would be like Starcraft campaigns.

 

You will start with the Greek colonization campaign Being the same campaign with a proto Ptolemy faction.

The one about found colonies.

The Greeks will come from across the sea to Egypt to help the Egyptians.

The campaign, you will help the Egyptians against the Persians.

It will be the story of Neukratis And the relations between Egypt and the Greeks.

This unique campaign will unlock the Persian campaign and will unlock the Greek city campaigns.

Persia

Athens

Sparta

these campaigns will unlock  the Macedonian campaign.

Macedonian

Then the Maurya campaign is unlocked.

And unlock the first Carthaginian campaign.

And Diadochi campaigns.

Then this will unlock the Roman and Iberian  campaign.

And so on. 

Such a grande planne™ is fine and all, but would take 20 years to complete. I got time (I hope), but just understand how much work this is. Starting with a tutorial campaign as you mention there is key to such a plan. It proves it can be done and with quality. Personally, I don't want something just thrown together. We are long past putting low quality content in the game. While this stipulation slows things down, it at least keeps the game consistent. So, let's develop a tutorial campaign first. Block it all out, scenario by scenario. Decide what the goals for each scenario are first. Here are some random thoughts:

 

• It would be a cool "behind the scenes" thing to name each scenario after a piece of music in the game (and then have that piece of music by the first song you hear).
• Each scenario can be a different faction, so the player can passively get comfortable with the varied factions, at least comfortable with the aesthetics and names of everything. 
• Each scenario must have a goal in mind and revolve around that goal. "What are we teaching the player in this scenario and what are the steps to do it?"
• The goals for each scenario should have a natural progression and escalation. Start with basics and work up to higher level things.
• We can't teach every single UI feature, hotkey, gameplay feature, or strategy in one tutorial campaign, so choices must be made on what to teach and what to let the player discover on their own. 
• We will need UI code to allow us to highlight things in the UI. Flashing icons. Circle overlays, etc. And the trigger scripts for these things. So, if the narrator tells the player to click the Hoplite button in the UI 5 times, then that button should flash and we have some kind of overlay to highlight it (a circle over it, an animated arrow, sparkles, something). Not only does this help move things along, player will expect this kind of user experience polish. 

 

 

[Gurken Khan]

7 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

And so on. 

On the one hand I like that the campaigns would be connected. On the other hand I think it's debatable if we really want to hard-lock the later campaigns behind the earlier ones. Do we really want to tell players in which order they can play them? Why not let them pick what they play or in which order?

Spoiler

For example I don't play mace simply because I don't like CS melee cav (they're the first to die and I don't wanna spend 4.5k metal on non-champion cav), so maybe I'd just wanna skip their scenarios.

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

9 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

You know something? You are very old here.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

13 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

On the one hand I like that the campaigns would be connected. On the other hand I think it's debatable if we really want to hard-lock the later campaigns behind the earlier ones. Do we really want to tell players in which order they can play them? Why not let them pick what they play or in which order?

 

It depends if there is some kind of narrative through-line. If the campaigns are relatively self-contained, then there's no reason to lock them in order. But if there's some kind of progression designed into an overall storyline, then locking them in order makes sense. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

 

It depends if there is some kind of narrative through-line. If the campaigns are relatively self-contained, then there's no reason to lock them in order. But if there's some kind of progression designed into an overall storyline, then locking them in order makes sense. 

The order is to unravel the mystery, but that step could be skipped if the player wishes.

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

We can't teach every single UI feature, hotkey, gameplay feature, or strategy in one tutorial campaign, so choices must be made on what to teach and what to let the player discover on their own

At least you have to teach how to capture buildings, heal units and the citizen soldier system.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

3 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

The order is to unravel the mystery, but that step could be skipped if the player wishes.

A checkbox option: "Play Sequentially?" that locks them in order.

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

A checkbox option: "Play Sequentially?" that locks them in order.

Yes.

[Lion.Kanzen]

I was thinking about the Egyptian AoE campaign... And a little bit about William Wallace's campaign.

The first escenario in AoE is hunting, we can combine this with foraging  farming and explore Which are the following scenarios.

In the following, you will learn how to increase the population, use the corral, capture animals, research technologies, prepare defenses and withstand an attack, as well as pass the phase.

The following map would be water.

Water exploration, fishing and trading as well as preparing for a second CC expansion on the other shore and offensive combat.

Those would be the first 3 maps of the learning campaign.They are not all that there would be, but it is the basic idea.

I leave the source with the link for more ideas.

https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Ascent_of_Egypt

 

Edited October 14 by Lion.Kanzen

[ShadowOfHassen]

19 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Do you by any chance have any plans for narrative campaigns?

I'm wondering if in some secret corner of wildfire games there is an idea to follow with the narrated campaigns.

@Vanthaand I talked about it a few times, nothing conclusive, I do have some ideas.

[Vantha]

Yep, I'd be onboard

[Lion.Kanzen]

14 minutes ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

@Vanthaand I talked about it a few times, nothing conclusive, I do have some ideas.

I imagined that Vantha might get involved in this project.

[Grautvornix]

I am loving it! Could there be a way to carry over resources from one game to the next in row?

[Lion.Kanzen]

8 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

I am loving it! Could there be a way to carry over resources from one game to the next in row?

I don't think so in this narrative mode but (I've already considered it but you will always start OP the next game if it's allowed).

What we could do is give you a rank and from that rank give you a bonus to make the next game easier. (But no easiest).

That would be fairer.

I thought that. (Because I had already considered it already).

Edited October 14 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

6 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Each scenario can be a different faction, so the player can passively get comfortable with the varied factions, at least comfortable with the aesthetics and names of everything. 

It would then be like a combination of The Conquerors campaign and the Learning campaign.

6 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

The goals for each scenario should have a natural progression and escalation. Start with basics and work up to higher level things

Yes, the first scenario of each campaign is for familiarization, except if it is already a campaign like the Roman ones, they are long and many.

 For Caesar's campaign there must be 3 campaigns before.

The Rise of Sons of Mars.(Rise of Rome).

The Clash of destiny (The Punic Wars).

Challenging the masters of Mediterranean (Macedonic Wars).

6 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

We can't teach every single UI feature, hotkey, gameplay feature, or strategy in one tutorial campaign, so choices must be made on what to teach and what to let the player discover on their own. 

Most keyboard shortcuts should be left.

Formations also.

Even minimap features.

From there, the only thing I can think of is new gameplay that hasn't been released yet.

Mercenary camps, conversion...etc.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

7 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

7 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

We will need UI code to allow us to highlight things in the UI. Flashing icons. Circle overlays, etc. And the trigger scripts for these things. So, if the narrator tells the player to click the Hoplite button in the UI 5 times, then that button should flash and we have some kind of overlay to highlight it (a circle over it, an animated arrow, sparkles, something). Not only does this help move things along, player will expect this kind of user experience polish. 

 

 

But something non-invasive. I mean, something that doesn't become annoying like many games today.

I leave a link to a video on : how to make tutorials for games like our.

https://youtu.be/-GV814cWiAw?si=NNPlw9CuXPZBKv5Y

 

 

Edited October 14 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

3 hours ago, ShadowOfHassen said:

@Vanthaand I talked about it a few times, nothing conclusive, I do have some ideas.

What do you have planned or what have you talked among you ?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

 

But something non-invasive. I mean, something that doesn't become annoying like many games today.

I leave a link to a video on : how to make tutorials for games like our.

https://youtu.be/-GV814cWiAw?si=NNPlw9CuXPZBKv5Y

 

 

Oooooooo. This is very nice, especially at the 6:00 timestamp:

 

 

 

So, what we could do is, don't have a "tutorial campaign" per se. Instead, have various missions that teach you new things that players can play at their leisure. You could play them sequentially, but it's not necessary to do so; you could just jump to "Advanced Map Control" for your 2nd tutorial lesson if you wanted to, or if you tried playing online and were utterly demolished, you could go offline and play a relevant tutorial mission to help teach you what you lacked online. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

43 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

 

But something non-invasive. I mean, something that doesn't become annoying like many games today.

I leave a link to a video on : how to make tutorials for games like our.

https://youtu.be/-GV814cWiAw?si=NNPlw9CuXPZBKv5Y

 

 

According to this youtuber.

Here are some tips for making a good tutorial.

The tutorial should not be boring.

Let there be a lot of freedom from the beginning.

There must be an inverted pyramid of decisions to be made, which keeps increasing.

Apparently you have to teach how to collect resources at the beginning.

And the first task of a game should be to teach how to collect resources.

I imagine that teaching how to collect food should be the first task of the first scenario but not the only one.

As I understand it, you should start with the main structure(CC) and then the other basic ones one by one.

Another tip is to have a special interface for the tutorial, very minimalist and without so many buttons.

As you play, new elements appear in the interface.

Another idea, I don't know if it applies at all, is to include tutorials in the campaign.

That happened in the first scenario of "Enemies of Rome".

Where they taught you how to use shift click to make waypoints.

 

The next is that the tasks must be easy and simple.

Collect 500 food for example.

With this task you will interact quickly with the game.

This is where the tips part of RTS comes in.

He says not to use things like:

Click here.

Press this button 

Because that will make the player not think and not learn anything.

Following instructions is not the best way to learn how to play.

Straight forward, seems to be the key.

And experiment with critical thinking.

 

Players should be given the option to follow the mission without many instructions. 

Let them learn from experience and from making mistakes.

We just need to give a list of objectives to complete.

Let the player find the correct answer for himself.

But there is a warning, in strategy games, a mistake can lead to several wasted hours.

Feedback needs to be given on how to balance to the correct  gameplay.(Basically -in another scenario -teach build orders from time to time).

A simple solution is using advice characters.

Basically a guy saying things like Borg- would tell you  to improve.

We should use @borg- to this.

The advisor should remind you when you don't have houses or units  or resources to do something.

 

Last warning is : you don't assume people play another games.

You need to have tooltips ( or tips screen of campaign) ready for when people get stuck in the game.

In addition to the tutorial campaign, you learn through challenging scenarios.

 And finally skip the tutorial option.

29 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Oooooooo. This is very nice, especially at the 6:00 timestamp:

 

 

 

So, what we could do is, don't have a "tutorial campaign" per se. Instead, have various missions that teach you new things that players can play at their leisure. You could play them sequentially, but it's not necessary to do so; you could just jump to "Advanced Map Control" for your 2nd tutorial lesson if you wanted to, or if you tried playing online and were utterly demolished, you could go offline and play a relevant tutorial mission to help teach you what you lacked online. 

I make a summary, hahaha 

[ShadowOfHassen]

2 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

What do you have planned or what have you talked among you ?

Well it’s not that much, we talked about keeping track of good historical periods to make campaigns about, and at least in my mind we had the rough idea of starting working on that after the encyclopedia, I’m not sure if @Vantha was on the complete same page, however.

i have a plan for a story based introductory campaign/ tutorial , though I like the idea of individual scenarios that can be done played in any order too.

i also had some narrative choices I kind of wanted to implement nothing hard fast or anything though, I’m willing to work on writing / design for campaigns but I can’t do map stuff or scripting or anything like that.